The ruling of the Abuja high court sacking some lawmakers in Cross River State on account of their defection from the party on whose ticket they came to the House has brought the matter of defection back into the public space. The case against the Cross River State governor would be decided tomorrow. There are speculations that the matter would also go the way of Governor Dave Umahi’s. It would certainly move to the appeal level. While we await the outcome of the delicate political matter, I have expressed my view on the Umahi matter here, and those views go for all matters of defection while in office. Governor Umahi of Ebonyi State was enraged by his sacking along with 15 lawmakers in the state. They had defected from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the platform on which they were elected into office in 2015 and 2019, to the All Progressive Congress (APC). The lawmakers who were elected on the PDP platform had also joined the governor and his deputy in defecting to the ruling party. Determined to reclaim its mandate, the PDP sued Umahi, his deputy and the 15 lawmakers with the APC and the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) joined as defendants.
On Tueday, March 8, 2022, Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja, ordered that the governor, his deputy and the affected lawmakers should vacate their office immediately. He ordered INEC to receive candidates from the PDP to replace Umahi and Igwe.
‘The votes in any election in Nigeria are to political parties, and not candidates. It would be constitutionally wrong for a person who was sponsored by one political party to defect and become a member of another party before the expiration of the period he was elected. The Constitution would be put in jeopardy when the will of the electorate who voted for a political party can be brazenly merchandized by candidates without consequence. The APC cannot govern Ebonyi through the 3rd and 4th defendants (Umahi and Iwge) when it did not win the election that produced them. Having defected to another party, they cannot hold on to the votes of the plaintiff (PDP) to remain in office,” Justie Ekpo stated in his ruling.
The judgment is in sharp contrast to last month’s decision of the Gusau division of the Federal High Court ratifying the defection of Governor Bello Matawalle of Zamfara State, who similarly dumped the PDP, on whose platform he became governor, for the APC last year.
Justice Ekwo’s ruling enraged Umahi, and the seemingly embattled governor lost his cool when he addressed the press. He tongue-lashed the judge and insisted that the judge was wasting his time, saying the judge seemed to be biased against the state. Umahi later came to his senses and recanted his outburst. He apologized to the judge and the judiciary. Those who have perused Ekpo’s ruling say it was well researched, and it is so water-tight that it may not be upturned at appeal stage. But the ruling in Gusau mentioned above is on the similar matter, and the conservative stance of the Supreme Court may not let Ekwo’s ruling stand.
Whatever the outcome of the appeal, Ekwo has shaken the table. The prevalent truth is that politicians seem to have scant regard for the electorate after they get into office. Justice Ekwo made a fundamental statement when he noted that the “Constitution would be put in jeopardy when the will of the electorate who voted for a political party can be brazenly merchandized by candidates without consequence.”
There has been a gale of defections in the last 23 years of recent democracy, which indicates that the political parties have no ideological base, and politicians want power at all cost. They have no ideological bent other than to get power. They defect without recourse to the party that gave them the platform or the people that gave them the mandate. As Justice Ekwo said, they merchandize with the mandate. In one fell swoop in 2013, five governors from Adamawa, Kano, Kwara, Rivers and Sokoto, 37 representatives, and 11 senators left PDP and joined the APC. Many of then returned to the party a few years down the line. In August 2018, 13 senators, 37 representatives three state governors left the APC to join other political parties. Lately, it has become the turn of the governors of Ebonyi, Cross River and Zamfara to dump the PDP for APC. Section 68 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, frowns at cross-carpeting but politicians have always explored the issue of “a division in the political party,” which the Constitution permits as the exception for defecting.
Indeed, political parties are important institutions for developing policies and platforms, providing critical oversight and accountability of government action. Through their elected representatives, political parties implement policies that reflect the ideology of the party. Political parties are vessels to government globally, including Nigeria. Hence, every person must contest under a political party, and it is morally expected that they maintain fidelity to the party. In the American presidential system, after which the Nigerian system is modelled, the party is supreme. It was so in the days of President Shehu Shagari. But, with the passage of time, individuals, especially governors, became bigger than the parties on whose platform they were elected. The party revolves around them, and they become the party and its policy. They have no recourse to the parties, that, in any case, are bereft of ideology. Their ideas, whims and caprices become the ideology of the parties. They could move to another party and take the entire cabinet, state lawmakers and party executive with them. They dispense patronage, giving them the power to swing the pendulum where they wish. They use the instrumentality of power and state resources to muscle the entire state machinery to join in their new political escapade.
A state’s chief executive has a moral obligation to remain committed to his party and make it stronger than he met it. Defection, more so when you are still in office with the party’s mandate, is immoral. Although morality seems not have any room in the political calculation in Nigeria, it ought to, at some levels, otherwise we only shed crocodile tears when we complain about the declining morals in our clime.
While we await the result of the appeal, I hold that defection is a malaise with the capacity to spread to all things political and decent. It fosters impunity and corruption. It is the major reason Nigeria cannot build political parties around well-defined ideologies intended to promote economic and social development. Politics must be rescued from people who seek power for the sake of it, and have no ideological purpose for the pursuit of power.