In This Defection Season: Fool me Once..
Our politicians have gone mad again. It is the season before elections. The season they should be selling their achievements for the past three years. And asking us to support their ambition for the next four years.It should be stories of how many million jobs were created. How the economy grew under their watch .How they have secured the country. What infrastructure they have built to make life easy. How they have tackled corruption . But instead they are creating entertainment with foolishness and political bravado. In the name of hopping from one political platform to the other.
In a well scripted drama, they are drifting one after the other from the ruling APC to PDP. Atiku Abubakar, the defector-in-chief fired the first shot. We are used to him. He has done this every four years in the past four election cycles. PDP to APC to PDP to APC and now back to APC. This deserves a Guinness book of records award for the most political defections in the world. In the end that may be what the world may remember him by.
His return to PDP marked the kickoff of this defection season. He did it four years ago.Following the same script. He defected from PDP when it was obvious the party would not give the presidential ticket to him. How do you ask an incumbent president to hand over a ticket to you when he still wants to continue as president?.
His bitterness and ambition spurned off a gale of defections that eventually split the party into two and led to the defeat of the incumbent president. If he cannot be president, why should anyone be. Sadly his defection to the APC ended in disappointment. He thought he would have the party ticket. They only allowed him to contest. He failed woefully. He has been licking his wound since then. Waiting for the next cycle to try his luck.And as was expected, he did and with no shame. No remorse. No apology. Just excuses and blame.
Today, all the people he led astray into APC are once more retracing their steps. Saraki, Tambuwal, Governors. Senators, and the less important foot soldiers who follow them everywhere they go.
The public is entertained. Some are singing their praises. The people who have been hard done by the calamity of their last defection are lining the streets to welcome them from where they came from. The latest return of the perpetual prodigals. When you read their defection speeches, there is no sense of remorse. No sense that they owe us any explanation. They blame the APC for not living up to expectations. Just as they blamed the PDP that had made them what they were for not living up to expectations. Sorry APC.Have patience. In four years they will be back.
You would think that when they talked about expectations, they meant the promises they made to you and me . To better our lives. And for the last three years, they could actually have attempted to do. But no. Its not about your expectations. But theirs
Take Saraki for instance. He has been in mortal combat with the president and the party since they got into power. I wish the combat was about making life better for us. Of making better legislation to better our lives. But the senate has not become a better place for its core function despite his iron grip on the levers of control.
And then Tambuwal. Blaming the presidency for everything that has gone wrong in his state where he is commander in chief. In his last sojourn as the Speaker of House of representative, he sabotaged his party agenda on behalf of the opposition. And was rewarded . Despite the consequences for the masses . Yes. His sabotage made our lives worse. And he used it to negotiate to become governor in APC. And now he is leaving APC hoping that he will will land the Presidential ticket of the PDP. What is his record as Governor of Sokoto State. Or did the President prevent him from being a good governor? I would have said that it serves APC right. But I am more frightened that he may end up as our President. How do you deal with such character without honor becoming your president?
So when you read the poetry that is his defection notice and you nod your head in agreement, note that it is not about you. It is not about your welfare. These migratory birds have only one agenda. To get to the next grazing point for this new political season. To meet their expectations in the next cycle of stealing our present and our future.
And when you come out to the streets in jubilation and praise their actions because you are frustrated with your present, note that you are like someone singing the praise of your rapist, the person who has stolen your past and is planning to steal your future.
PDP and APC are just vehicles for the new crop of politicians we have bred in this republic to pull wool over our eyes every four years to continue the plunder of the republic. Support them. Defend them . Wax lyrical about them.Plain foolishness. You deserve the life they have helped create for all of us.
As for Buhari and his band of incompetents, take heart.You deserve no sympathy. We were here four years ago. You welcomed them with open arms. Your arms are still open now they are leaving. They will come back when you are gone. Just ask Jonathan.
