Season of defective defections.

Tele Ikuru, Rivers State deputy governor, recently defected from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from where he had defected to APC in December 2013. His explanations: “My dear people of Rivers State, I, Ikuru, Rivers State Deputy Governor, recently defected from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of this generation will not… expect forgiveness … from our forebears (and) posterity… if… after 48 years of … supporting leaders from (other) parts of (Nigeria) with our votes and resources, we were the same that hounded down the very first President from this region…” He concluded his parochial justifications: “I wash my hands off this treachery;” and describes APC as a political party of “rebels, insurgents, and anarchists, clothed in the robes of pretense and deceit, (thriving) on propaganda and falsehood.” Sections 38 and 40 of Nigeria’s Constitution respectively grant Ikuru the rights to “freedom of thought (and) conscience,” and to “assemble freely and associate with other persons, and… belong to any political party.” Sections 65(2)(b), 106(d), 131(c) and 177(c) of the Constitution want those seeking elective offices to “belong to, and be sponsored by, a political party.” Ikuru has acted out his conscience; exercised his right to associate with whomsoever he chooses; and has taken care not to breach the Constitution, by (re)joining the PDP. Serial decampee, Atiku Abubakar tops Ikuru’s escapade. Atiku left Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM)to the PDP; left to become Presidential Candidate of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN); returned to PDP and is now back to APC, the expanded ACN. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, first ceremonial President of Nigeria, who never dumped his political party for another, argued that an individual had every right to change his mind as many times as he wanted. Sir Winston Churchill, the greatest Englishman that ever lived, decamped to the Conservative Party. America’s Great Communicator, President Ronald Reagan, joined the Republican Party from the Democratic Party. These two men had one thing in common: the strength of their conviction. They moved for ideological reasons. Ikuru, however, has parochial kindred spirit in Colin Powel, a Black Republican, who served as Secretary of State for George Bush, Jr. Powel was among the first to endorse fellow Black, Barack Obama, of the Democratic Party, for President. There is no doubt that Ikuru timed his action to the eve of the Presidential Election. It is expected to give a seismic jolt to the calculations of APC, both in Rivers State as well as at the national level. It also gives credence to the plausible thinking that Ikuru was a PDP mole in the APC all along.