The past few months have been good for the All Progressives Congress (APC) with harvest of members from the opposition camp. The ambition of APC is to dislodge the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from power in 2015. Will PDP sit by and watch that dream unfold? Asks IDOWU SAMUEL.

The journey to 2015, long and tortuous as it seems, is nonetheless close by. The build-up to the election year, which Nigerians are awaiting with stiff eyelids, has not offered the slightest clue as to what the next round of elections will bring for the country. Succinctly, 2015 is unpredictable because political events in the country have been occurring in torrents, so rapidly too that no mortal can easily guess what their end would be.

Like never before, politics in Nigeria has assumed a new face and structure at the instance of the players who are lately at peace with the idea of swinging from camp to camp in search of comfort for their political ambitions or agenda. The turn of events has rendered party system in the country prostrate and unreliable.

Nigeria is perhaps the only country that operates a very loose party system, a brand that gives a different meaning to democracy and its strong elements.

Although the electoral law gives room for multi-party system, what anyone could read from the political experiences in the country today is that two-party system is already at play. The fusion of all opposition groups in the country into the All Progressives Congress (APC) as a counter force to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is one reason the country seems to be operating a two-party system, though nominally.

Since the emergence of APC, the Nigerian politics made a 360-degree turn to face a new direction which suddenly altered the balance of power produced from the 2011 elections, in favour of the opposition. With the sustained mass defection of aggrieved members of PDP into APC, the opposition now looks as good as controlling the majority in the law-making arms of the government at the centre, just as the PDP continues to lose the structures it has in some states to the opposition.

The interim National Publicity Secretary of APC, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, blamed the turn of events on the attitude of PDP to democracy. He said with PDP, the failure of leadership had been glaring such that members who never felt comfortable with the situation in the party felt obliged to seek greener pasture in APC.

According to him, the electoral law never forbade an aggrieved member of a political party from defecting once his rights and interests were infringed upon. APC, according to him, had continued to be stronger owing to the infamies that PDP had been exhibiting. He said Nigerians should fold arms and watch how APC would constitute the next government in 2015.

In the past couple of weeks, the camp of the APC has swollen by the day with PDP members. From across the states, there have been mass movements of aggrieved PDP members into APC. It was when five aggrieved members of PDP governors defected to APC not long ago that many Nigerians had the idea that, indeed, the PDP had serious problems to contend with.

Indications are rife that the PDP was severely pinched by losing a good number of its strong members to the APC. First, President Goodluck Jonathan, who is by convention the PDP leader, had held a series of consultations with the party’s top shots on how to stem the wave of defections of PDP members to APC. More than three times, the president held meetings with two of the PDP governors who equally threatened to quit the party, but chose to stay behind at the end. Yet, the meeting between Jonathan and the governors of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido and his counterpart in Niger State, Mua’zu Babangida Aliyu, has not yielded any positive result. The two governors were expected to prevail on their counterparts in Sokoto, Adamawa, Rivers, Kwara and Kano states, Magatakrada Wamakko, Murtala Nyako, Rotimi Amaechi, Abdulfatah Ahmed and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, to return to PDP.

Also, the National Chairman of PDP, Bamanga Tukur, has been making efforts to pacify the remaining aggrieved members. Besides, Tukur has repeatedly said an automatic amnesty awaited any of the PDP defectors who wished to return. According to him, those who left the PDP for another party because of little grievances ought not to do so, because the PDP remained the strongest and most widely accepted party across the country.

He allayed the fear over the consistent defection of PDP members to APC and expressed confidence that at the nick of time, those who defected would return based on the arrangements being put in place by the PDP leadership.

But as if daring the PDP leadership, some aggrieved members of PDP in some states have been leaving the party in droves. On Wednesday, Sokoto State broke the record on the issue of defection when virtually all members of PDP in the state House of Assembly announced their resolve to join the APC. Twenty-seven out of the 30 members of the assembly did so.

The defectors had marched to the government house to formally notify the governor about their decision. The Speaker, who led the delegation of PDP defectors, told Wamakko that their decision to leave PDP stemmed from the breakdown of law and order in the party and the failure by the leadership to provide a level playing ground for members. The lawmakers expressed confidence in Wamakko whose government, they claimed, had brought luck to the state.

While appreciating the lawmakers’ decision to dump PDP, Wamakko said the need to save Nigeria from collapse necessitated their action, just as he vowed to continue to be more committed to justice, equity and the rule of law in his endeavours as the governor.

From indications, the APC is not being allowed to steal the show while poaching on members of PDP. In Imo State, the PDP has been rallying forces to dislodge the APC. At a rally held in the state after the Christmas celebration, the PDP announced the arrival of Senator Ifeanyi Araraumeh from the opposition camp with glee. Araraumeh had contested the governorship election in the state in 2003 and is set to make another attempt at the seat. The Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Honourable Emeka Ihedioha, at the rally, assured PDP members that come 2015, the current governor, Rochas Okorocha, would be history.

There are indications that in Kano and Sokoto states, the gale of defections will sweep through the APC camps also. For instance, in Kano, supporters of the former governor, Ibrahim Shekarau, are said to have been holding talks with the leadership of PDP to embrace the party. Shekarau and his supporters were said to have been displeased with the alleged usurpation of the leadership of APC in Kano by the state governor, Kwankwaso. Neither Shekarau nor any of his supporters has yet denied reports of their planned defection to PDP.

A similar scenario is playing out in Sokoto State where a former governor of the state, Atahiru Bafarawa, is said to be toying with the option of joining the PDP.

Bafarawa, according to reports, has been uncomfortable in APC and is ready to slug it out with the state governor who at the moment is calling the shots in the state’s APC.

So far, the APC has been the main beneficiary of the new nature of politics in the country. The ultimate aim of the party from the start has been to dislodge PDP from power in 2015. That seems to be a tall dream for a party which has also been contending with internal strives. For now, the APC, notwithstanding its growing size, needs to prove to the electorate that it, indeed, has the capacity, maturity and wherewithal to attain its dream of constituting the next government at the centre by beating PDP with its structure and height in 2015.