Weep not for PDP

The gale of defections from the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) partly informed my choice of the title for today’s intervention. It is also partly inspired by Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s classic, ‘Weep not, child.’ Ngugi took the title of the novel from Walt Whitman’s poem, ‘On the Beach at Night.’ The relevant portion of the poem is:  “Weep not, child/ Weep not, my darling/With these kisses let me remove your tears,/The ravening clouds shall not be long victorious,/They shall not long possess the sky…” I shall return to Ngugi later in the article.

While the growing defections from the PDP to the APC are worrisome and may sound a death knell to the PDP and kill the opposition in our democracy, I do not weep for the PDP, the former behemoth and the largest political party in Africa. I will also not write a dirge for the party, which its promoters said would rule Nigeria for a whopping 60 years. It was later extended to 100 years with the inflection of forever. If the PDP dies as some people are wishing, I will not attend its burial or write a funeral oration for its prophetic demise for what is happening to the PDP is self-inflicted. When a party lacks internal democracy, it will surely die a certain death.

It pains me that the once bubbling and thriving political party is now a shadow of itself. The PDP big umbrella that covered the entire landscape is now in tatters. The majority of its chieftains and promoters are now in APC carrying brooms all over the place, including those who swore at their mother’s grave that they will not join the APC. The ongoing carpet-crossing from one party to another reminds me of Chief Osita Osadebe’s classic, Osondi Owendi, which literally translates to ‘what one likes, another hates.’ Or put differently in local parlance as captured by another musician, ‘as e dey pain them, e day sweet us and as e day sweet us, e day pain them.’

What started when Delta State governor, Sheriff Oborevwori left the PDP with his entire cabinet and ex-governor of the state and joined the PDP, moved to Akwa Ibom State when Governor Umo Eno and his entire cabinet except one commissioner decamped from the PDP to the ruling party has now shifted to Enugu State with Governor Peter Mbah and his cabinet dumping the PDP for APC.

I also heard that Governor Douye Diri of Bayelsa State has also joined the bandwagon with his commissioners. However, some of the lawmakers from the state have refused to join him. All the defectors gave plausible reasons for their action. The unending crisis in the PDP is enough for any politician to quit. After all, politics is about personal interest and survival. It is not about carrying umbrella, broom, cockerel or Mama, Papa and Pikin or any other party symbol.

Defection is tacitly allowed in Nigeria. Party laws and other laws in the land endorsed it with a caveat: a person can leave his party if there is crisis in it. Even if there is no crisis, some politicians can generate crisis and use it as an alibi to leave the party. It is not a crime or sin to leave one party for another. Almost all the politicians in Nigeria have left one party and joined another at one point in their political career. If carpet-crossing is a sin, all of them are guilty of it. Nigerian politicians see a political party as a vehicle to climb to power.

Such a vehicle can be discarded if it no longer serves that purpose for a politician. If that vehicle spoils on the road to Damascus or Calvary, the political passenger is bound to board another vehicle to reach his destination, winning election. It does not matter to them if the vehicle is oiled or maintained. Do our politicians really care for us, the poor masses or for themselves and their social class? Do they seek our opinion before porting from one party to another? Do they think and believe that our voice or votes matter in their ascension to power?

What is happening to PDP is not new. Remember Jesus Christ said on his way to Calvary for his crucifixion, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.” In the same vein, Nigerians shall weep for themselves and their children and not for the dying PDP and the dying opposition waiting to be buried very soon for the betterment or otherwise of our democracy.

While many in the APC are laughing over the predicament of the PDP or Labour Party (LP) or any other party as such, they should laugh with caution. They should not laugh boisterously. They should not mock or deride the collapsing opposition for the death of one party diminishes the others because they are all involved in the business of democracy. If the opposition dies today, the nation’s democracy will die. The opposition is the oxygen of democracy. Without strong opposition, our nascent democracy will whittle and die untimely death. The whole political parties should weep for themselves and not for PDP.

The South-East politicians should watch the political development in the region and have a rethink on the best way forward. With three states in the ruling APC and one with one leg in APC and another leg in the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and another with one eye in LP and another eye elsewhere, what is the future of democracy in the region infested with insecurity, self-determination agitations, hunger and poverty? This mosaic political structure of the region has stunted our socio-economic development and robbed us of speaking with one voice in national affairs.

In all of this, I think that it has become necessary for our political leaders, governors, past governors and legislators, national and state assembly members, local governments chairmen and councillors, traditional leaders, religious leaders, market men and women and the youths to meet and jointly decide the political future of the region. The political future of the region should not be left in the hands of politicians alone. We have been in political desert or wilderness for long. We must be united because with divisions, we cannot stand strong or go far politically.

In all these defections, the voters are not carried along. That is perhaps the tragedy of defections and by extension our politics and our democracy. The voters don’t care more about parties any longer. They are more concerned with politicians and people who can do the job. For this democracy to survive, we must enact a law to ban defection or carpet-crossing. If not done quickly, it will kill this democracy. However, Ngugi has offered us hope and urged us not to weep for the present political disequilibrium or the seeming death of opposition. This phase like in the colonial Kenya or Nigeria will not last. Every problem has an expiry date. It will surely pass away like all things.