IT IS OFTEN SAID THAT THE ROUTE in politics is littered with broken relationships and strange bedfellows. This is playing itself out in Nigeria currently. With 2019 drawing closer, defections from one political party to the other has hit the political class. Nigerian politicians are moving camps, divorcing and marrying new political suitors and erecting new shades to ply their political trade.Apparently worried by the gale of defections rocking the polity, especially between the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and All Progressives Congress (APC) members in the National Assembly as 2019 elections draw near, Nigerians have condemned the action, describing it as selfish agenda of the politicians that would do Nigerians no good.  The defections are self-serving by greedy politicians, who lack principle and patriotism. What we are witnessing today in Nigerian politics is a substandard political game. The action is alarming, discouraging and of no value and inimical to the nation’s democracy. In terms of general interest, the present governance pattern in the country appears not to favour the masses. Where it is regrettable is that politicians speak with two sides of their mouth. It is highly regrettable that top politicians cannot provide the dividends of democracy we are clamouring for. All those changing parties are doing so because they are convinced that they would not be able to get their party’s tickets to either contest to return to the seats they are presently occupying or to contest any other position of their choices.  Defectors are self-centred and want only their personal interests to be protected. Politicians do not care about the people whenever they are taking any decision, forgetting that the people voted them into power.

Avalanche of individual politicians have recently decamped from one party to the other. The most astounding being the mass defection of members of the national assembly from the ruling All Progressives Congress to the Peoples Democratic Party. There were also the defection of Benue Governor Ortom from the APC to the PDP and most recently, the defection of the senate president, BukolaSaraki from the APC to the PDP. The PDP has also experienced its own losses through defections. The political juggernaut of Akwa-Ibom State, Godswill Akpabio defected from the PDP to the APC. Akpabio’s defection has turned him from a sinner to a saint. He was a Commissioner for eight years; an executive governor for eight years and has been a senator for three years. He achieved these feats under the PDP. But when he joined the APC, he said he had come to liberate Akwa Ibom youths from years of PDP suffering. But it is to be noted that the 20 years that he has been in power, the suffering youths were under his mercy as a PDP man, which means he made them to suffer. Many reasons have been proffered for Akpabio’s defection. The Economic and Financial Crime Commission, EFCC, has been on the trail of Akpabio. In fact, it has shot two pointed arrows at the former governor which many said bruised his psyche and he had to make a quick decision on the way out of his predicament. To him, he did the needful.

There appears to be political darkness and lawlessness everywhere. In all these, the masses are at the receiving end. But come to think of it, nobody decamped for Leah Sharibu. Nobody decamped for Anka or Rabbah or the blood that flowed in Gwer East. Nobody decamped for the illegal detention of Zakzaky. Nobody decamped for the illegal retention of Dasuki, for the outright disappearance of Kanu. Nobody decamped for mass killings of Fulani herdsmen or Boko Haram insurgency. Nobody decamped for the jobs that have still not been created, or the power that can still not be distributed. Nobody decamped for the brothers we lost to hospitals we cannot depend on, for the mothers we lost in labour to derelict wards and empty medicine cupboards. Nobody decamped for the unpaid pensioner and the soldier stuck on permanent rotation in Gwoza, for the teachers who work for months without pay and the litigant that cannot afford the cost of Justice. Nobody decamped for the children who beg to clean our windshields. Nobody decamped for them.Politicians are fighting for their pockets and only God will deliver us from their hands. It is obvious that they want to satisfy themselves. It is not in the interest of Nigerians. From what we are seeing, it is obvious that the politicians are in business. They are shameless people. They are not fighting for us, no plan for Nigerians and that is why they fight their way to the top.  Many of them want to get the presidential ticket and that is why they are cross-carpeting.  They are just playing games. They are migrating like rats running from one room to another and keep saying they are working for us. They defect just for the sake of power. They should think well and work for the benefit of the masses.Nigeria’s democracy is a merry go round show.The current defections and counter defections of our politicians from one political party to another sadly confirm that our politicians are deeply corrupt and without ideology. Most of them are in politics to sustain themselves with stolen money but not to serve the electorate. How can we grow and develop as a nation? Unfortunately the youths whose future is being wantonly destroyed are in jubilation over this.

The problem of this great country, Nigeria, is not APC or PDP; it is the problem of lack of political ideology and integrity by the current crop of politicians. It is a shame that people now see political parties as a vehicle to their selfish gains. Yesterday, it was the PDP members that were jumping into APC in droves. Today, it is the same party that they are leaving and returning to the PDP that they jumped from on the eve of the 2015 elections. They castigated the PDP, insulted the leaders that are now receiving them all because of their quest for power. This is very shameful, considering that our children are seeing all these things on television and they are reading about it in the papers. This is no longer politics; this is opportunism and a few people taking the Nigerian nation and the larger percentage of the people for a ride.  What we are seeing now is, if you don’t get what you want today, you jump to another party. The defectors have been there from the beginning; most of them were with Goodluck Jonathan and now they have gone back to the same PDP they derided and castigated. They are dogs eating their own vomits. If they have any modicum of shame, they would know that this is shameful.  Sadly, Nigerians are gullible; the villains of yesterday are today’s saints. God help and deliver us from the hands of the enemy.