APC: The dialectics of mass defection from the platform

Sir: The victory of Rotimi Akeredolu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the just concluded Ondo election speaks volumes as regard the democratic preference of Nigerians in the political process and accentuates a reanimated ascendancy of APC in the South West. For the party to have won so convincingly even with a divided house that saw many of its leading lights surreptitiously backing a candidate of another party.

The victory is a clear warning to the discontented section of the party that the era of impulsive and tactless defections is over and the interest of such centrifugal tendencies is better served in the spirit of centripetal concession building, such tendencies should bury their differences and come together as the south west people are not ready to take a gamble that could backfire and banish them to the fringes of political patronage like their southeast counterpart.

Buhari’s integrity is a humongous political capital the people of southwest cannot trade with any rash adventure into the unknown.
As long as the image of the president still looms large and continues to resonate with forward looking Nigerians, APC cross carpenters must feel the impulse of such demography before embarking on a mission which corollaries can only serve the interest of the opposition.

Nigerians are likely to view an advent of a new political party coming from a merger of the disgruntled members of both PDR and AAC with suspicion.

Principle, loyalty, tested manifesto and integrity would be eroded aside the perpetuity of the same conflict of interest apparent in the old merger.

This trend in Kogi, Edo and Ondo is likely to subsist in Ekiti and define the 2019 electoral character.

Nigerians are tired of party switching with old wine struggling to fill the new bottle.

Bukola Ajisola. bukymany@yahoo.com