A wise saying recommends you never judge a man until you’ve walked a step in his shoes. So, I would be the last person to condemn politicians switching parties as they battle for survival.
It is even harder to be judgmental because virtually everyone – All Progressives Congress (APC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and sundry others – have benefitted from the seasonal migration.
In the last couple of the weeks, following the movement of 15 senators and three governors from the ruling party, it did appear as if the opposition was headed for a crushing victory in the defection Olympics. Rumours of even more exits from a supposedly sinking APC ship must have sounded like sweet music in the PDP camp.
But in this column, I had observed that the defections were certainly not going to be one-way traffic given that the factors driving them were largely local ones, differing from state to state, from institution to institution.
Whereas the calculations in the Senate were comforting enough to encourage Senate President Bukola Saraki to jump ship, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has not been so fleet of feet, knowing how precarious his own position is. So, despite his expected exit from APC being one of the worst kept secrets in the political space, the Bauchi legislator has wisely chosen to fly under the radar for now.
Without question, the PDP has been the biggest beneficiary numerically in the gale of the defections – a development that gave the party some momentum in recent times. But whatever wind it must have gathered in its sails has been largely deflated by just one movement in the opposite direction. I refer to the decamping of erstwhile Senate Minority Leader, Godswill Akpabio.
If you want to gauge the shock and devastation felt by the PDP leadership over his departure, you only need to check the vitriol that has trailed his action. He has been called a traitor, Judas and a coward – and those are the more complimentary words used against him.
But it is not just the PDP which has suffered this embarrassing PR blow that is stunned. As a political commentator, I am shocked.
For months, when reporters filed stories about a supposed rift between Akpabio and incumbent Akwa Ibom State Governor, Udom Emmanuel, I would treat them with a spoonful of salt. I would turn them back to go and crosscheck their information. Many times I felt vindicated when the feuding sides – with straight faces and plastic smiles – would deny any problems. Frankly, most politicians possess greater Thespian skills than the so-called Nollywood stars.
Even when tales of Akpabio’s imminent defection to APC picked up pace, I preferred to be cautious. After all, all the seers were so sure Kaduna State senator, Shehu Sani, on account of his bickering with Governor Nasir El-Rufai, was set to abandon the ruling party. Imagine our collective shock when he smugly sat back in the company of the devil he was accustomed to.
It wasn’t until the former Akwa Ibom governor began appearing in chummy photos with APC National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and President Muhammadu Buhari, that I accepted that something was indeed afoot. Today’s reality is that Godswill Akpabio is now a member of the ruling party!
He may have taken one momentous step as an individual, but for the party of which he used to be a key leader, it is several steps backwards in the battle to wrest power from the APC.
Akpabio was as PDP as they come. He was one of the pillars that made the South-South zone an impregnable fortress for the former ruling party in the last eleven years. Even when the then Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, pulled out because of his troubles with former President Goodluck Jonathan and his wife, Patience, his efforts helped shore up whatever loss the party suffered in the brief period Rivers State was not within its ranks.
If he helped the party, PDP also reciprocated. In 2015, the party’s caucus in the Senate bent the rules to allow the newcomer to fill the Minority Leader slot – a position that would ordinarily have been occupied only by a ranking senator.
Irrespective of what might have transpired within the PDP in Akwa Ibom, very few would have boldly predicted that Akpabio would now be making common cause with a band of politicians he derisively referred to four years ago as “expired drugs” – a play on the acronym ‘APC’ – the name of a once popular analgesic in these parts.
He and others were equally vociferous in dismissing those who midwifed APC as a bunch of strange bedfellows who could never work together.
So what on earth could have made him hop into bed with those many would consider strange bedfellows to him? Let’s not forget that he’s now locked in awkward embrace with some of those he edged out of the PDP in the heat of the succession battle of 2015.
For instance, Umana Okon Umana, one-time Secretary to the State Government and now Managing Director, Oil and Gas Free Zones Authority (OGFZA), quit the PDP when it became apparent that Akpabio was bent on installing Emmanuel who he had headhunted from Zenith Bank, as his successor. The parting between erstwhile political allies was bitter.
In APC, Akpabio now has to caucus with the likes of John Akpan Udoehehe, his bitter rival for the gubernatorial seat who has long fancied himself the real leader of the party in Akwa Ibom. How would he respond to the assertive ex-governor who is not noted for taking the back seat?
Some have suggested that Akpabio’s defection is a ploy to get the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) off his back. But I doubt this theory because nothing on the ground would encourage any savvy politician to bet his house on this sort of arrangement.
Ask Orji Kalu if his praise-singing of Buhari and APC has slowed down the prosecution of his graft case. Perhaps former Plateau State Governor, Joshua Dariye, believed at some point that his membership of the ruling party would somehow ameliorate his legal woes. Today, in the anonymous prison where he’s serving time, he’s certainly wiser.
Or could it be ambition? It is not inconceivable that the top job in the National Assembly could be on offer – especially if the APC succeeds in toppling Saraki. But this, again, is unlikely as it would mean upturning the zoning arrangements locked into place by the ruling party.
The answer clearly lies elsewhere. It is true that politicians have a very low suffering or humiliation threshold, but something truly traumatic must have happened between Akpabio and his godson Emmanuel to have caused him to flee into the embrace of those he once fought with unrelenting ruthlessness.
It must have been something quite grievous if he’s willing to bear being painted as the face of treachery by his one-time confederates in Akwa Ibom and Abuja.
Whatever it was, the fallout between Akpabio and Emmanuel is an object lesson to incumbent governors who believe that by installing those they think would be their poodles, they are guaranteed a peaceful retirement where they would be governing from the back seat. This is another example that Nigerian gubernatorial ‘poodles’ have a nightmarish way of morphing into Frankenstein monsters.
Akpabio has taken a bold but risky step driven by calculations which only he can properly explain. He is just one individual and we must be careful not to ascribe too much power and influence to him. Still, in the context of today’s politics of defections, the APC which lost more in numbers would welcome this one significant movement in its direction.
A few weeks ago, the seemingly one-way defections were being interpreted by some as a bellwether for likely 2019 outcomes. But the unscripted reverse decamping by Akpabio is a significant psychological blow for the PDP and a coup for the APC. As we await the next act in the unfolding drama, wise men won’t go placing bets.