Crossing carpet from one political party in normal democracies is very rare. The last time this happened in the United Kingdom was sometimes in the 1970s when some members of the British Labour Party left to form, along members of the old Liberal Party, the Social Democratic Party. They did not cross over to the Conservative party. In the USA the so-called Dixiecrats who were members of the Democratic Party and who were mostly racists holding on to the old slave-holding and racist past in those states south of the Mason – Dixon line, left to join the Republican Party, the party of Abraham Lincoln which in modern times has ironically become a racist party against the tradition of its founders. In these democracies nowadays one would rather stand as Independents or quit politics entirely than cross carpet for the purpose of getting elected to any electoral positions.
But in our clime and in our recent past, it was unusual to witness the current trend in Nigeria where politicians go up and down like a yoyo sleeping one night in one party and waking up the following night in a totally different party. In our recent past, especially during the First Republic, people formed different parties if they disagreed with their old parties. This was the case with Chief S.L Akintola’s party, United Peoples Party when he left the Action Group and KO Mbadiwe’s Democratic Party when in he left the NCNC. Sleep-walking from political party to another as it is the case today started in the Second Republic when the likes of Busari Adelakun, Akin Omoboriowo and Chief Sunday Afolabi crossed over from the UPN unashamedly to the NPN. Of course in my lifetime I have seen strange things happen in Nigerian politics such as Dr. Michael Okpara and Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu joining the NPN and even the stalwarts of the old Action Group the trio of G. S. Ikokwu , Anthony Enahoro and J.S Tarka who were opposed to reconciliation in the old Action Group deserting Obafemi Awolowo to join his enemies in the NPN.
But we have never witnessed the kind of political prostitution going on now in current Nigerian politics where a former presidential flag bearer of one party would unashamedly cross over to attempt to get elected in to office of governor on the platform of a party he ran against flippantly saying that there is not much difference between the two parties! What dishonesty!. If politicians expect to be taken seriously, they must stay the course and show that they are not in politics for their bellies alone. There must be a higher calling than just making money and living well without work as most of our politicians tend to do.
Recently Tom Ikimi and Ali Modu Sheriff the former governor of Borno crossed over to the PDP apparently to enjoy stomach infrastructure while pretending they left because of lofty reasons. For the former governor of Borno to have been accepted into the PDP speaks volumes about what kind of party it is especially because of the current tragedy that has befallen Borno and the entire North-eastern part of Nigeria where some of us including myself invested part of our youth in helping to build. As for Ikimi, I was surprised when he said he is proud to have been a former foreign minister of Nigeria in a regime that was expelled from the Commonwealth when a national of our country was its Secretary-general, and a regime that defrauded the country of close to $10 billion spirited out of the country and lodged in private accounts some of which will never be found. Instead of boasting of being the regime’s foreign minister, Ikimi should cover his face in shame because he served in a regime that will go down in infamy. In the history of contemporary Africa, never has so few destroyed the lives of so many in so short a time.
Perhaps in the interest of our country, our leaders ought to take more seriously the mission of leadership in this benighted country. We cannot afford politics without principles and commitment. Political parties need to be known for where they stand on any issue. We cannot run our country on parties that change principles like taffeta and chameleon. If we are not careful in this country politicians will be totally disconnected from the people that there will be no need for political parties and we may therefore be forced to embrace the Egyptian or Indonesian model of guided democracy in which the military will play a dominant part which will be unfortunate and not in the long term interest of our country. Without their knowing it, politicians are gradually becoming the grave-diggers of democracy.
