Dan Agbese
SMS only: 08055001912; email: ochima495@ gmail. com lights in the PDP that had ruled the country for some 16 years, abandoned it for APC. The fortunes of the once biggest in Africa instantly dipped and it lost the presidential election and a substantial number of the states. The big umbrella under which millions gathered to be anointed as leading or bit part political players or to escape the long arms of EFCC, offered no attraction to anyone any more. The party was on its own.
In 2019, the party began the essential process of recovery. But now, it faces an existential threat if the news that more and more of its governors and members would dump it for APC is to be believed. I have gone down my cluttered memory lane to make two points about the pragmatic wisdom of our politicians. One, stomach infrastructure as a guiding political ideology is detriment to the political health of our nation. No one would be naïve enough to discount the damage it has done to our political stability all these years.
Politics is not just a game of chance or opportunities; it is the time- honoured means made for public service. As long as our politics is defined by the need of the individual to escape starvation, so long will our political parties do less than commit to public service and the development of the nation. We do not know what our political parties stand for. Take that back. We know, of course, that they stand for something - stomach infrastructure.
Two, it should be possible for us to grow two major political parties able to compete for our support at the polls. That would be good for our political health because we need two strong parties, not one strong party, so we can have the choice promised by political pluralism. I think it would be naïve to expect the parties to have ideologies. Since the virtual collapse of communism, ideologies matter less than grabbing power. The world has moved beyond the one- party system. It would do our country, its politics and politicians no good to give some life to the dodo. The framers of the 1979 constitution partially tried to chain the to- ing and fro- ing among the politicians by providing that legislators who defected to other parties must forfeit their elective offices. The politicians ensured that this was obeyed entirely in the breach. Stomach infrastructure rules. Nigeria loses the fundamentals of party politics and the role political parties play in changing and developing nations.
Having said all that, let me say this: let no politician allow himself to starve. They must all move to the centre where the food is abundant and no one goes hungry. The rosy cheeks trump hollow cheeks any day. A nation that feeds its political leaders is a caring nation, a nation worth dying for by those who feed well at its expense.