A visiting Professor at Taraba State College, Jalingo, Professor Jonah Onuoha, has alleged that politicians defecting from their events to the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, are motivated by worry of dropping within the 2027 normal elections and by the need to evade anti-graft scrutiny.
Talking in Jalingo on weekend concerning the current wave of defections throughout the nation, Onuoha described the pattern as a transparent indication that many Nigerian politicians lack real political ideology and are pushed primarily by private curiosity.
“These politicians are searching for a platform the place they’ll win elections in 2027 and likewise the place businesses just like the EFCC is not going to come after them throughout or after their tenures.
“The defections are merely a survival technique; politicians imagine that when they be a part of the ruling get together, their pursuits are protected and their sins are forgiven,” he mentioned.
Onuoha, who can also be the Director of the Centre for American Research on the College of Nigeria, Nsukka, UNN, expressed concern that the spate of defections may additional weaken the opposition Peoples Democratic Get together, PDP,
“It’s indeniable that there are inside crises within the PDP, but when members stay devoted and imagine within the get together’s ideology, the issues could be resolved earlier than the 2027 elections.
“Nonetheless, the continuing defections from PDP to APC will certainly have an effect on the get together’s possibilities within the presidential, governorship, and legislative elections,” he defined.
He cited the current defection of Enugu State Governor, Peter Mbah and your complete PDP construction within the state to the APC as a “severe minus” to the opposition get together.
The political scientist, who as soon as served as Head of the Division of Political Science at UNN, warned that if the pattern continued, Nigeria would possibly drift towards a one-party system by 2027, an consequence he described as “unhealthy and harmful for democracy.”
Supporting Onuoha’s place, Dr. Chinedu Ejezie, a Senior Lecturer within the Division of Political Science at UNN, additionally condemned the wave of defections, arguing that good governance and electoral success are usually not depending on belonging to the ruling get together.
He dismissed claims by some governors that they had been defecting with a purpose to “join their states to the centre,” noting that each one 36 states had been receiving their month-to-month federal allocations since President Bola Tinubu assumed workplace in Could 2023 with out discrimination.
“Even with the removing of gas subsidy, federal allocations to states have elevated considerably. There isn’t any proof that any governor has been denied allocation as a result of he belongs to the opposition,” Ejezie mentioned.
He pointed to governors like Alex Otti of Abia State (Labour Get together), Charles Soludo of Anambra State, APGA, and Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, PDP, as examples of opposition leaders performing properly with out defecting to the APC.
“In spite of everything, some governors within the ruling get together are usually not doing properly of their states, exhibiting that being linked to the centre shouldn’t be a assure for good governance.
“What issues is the even handed use of federal allocations and the correct administration of human and materials sources,” Ejezie added.
