Risk of playing Kalanda

The worst salesman I ever knew was a man who used to hawk kalanda [calendar] in my hometown back in the early 1970s.  Kalanda was a very popular local lottery in those days. It was made up of pictures of animals printed on a hardboard paper. It cost three pence to subscribe, and your name will be inscribed near your chosen animal picture. The winning animal picture is embedded inside the bottom right edge of the kalanda and it is tightly sewed. After customers have bought all the entries, the kalanda’s edge is ceremoniously unstitched and the winner is revealed, who walks away with about five shillings. That kalanda salesman in my hometown used to race through the town on a hired bicycle saying, “Zoka yanki kalanda! Ko kaci ko acika!” [Come and subscribe to calendar. You either win or you ruin.”]

I remembered that salesman last week when news broke of the 15 senators and 37 members of the House of Representatives that decamped from the ruling All Progressives Congress [APC]. Most of them went to the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party [PDP] while a few of them went to the small African Democratic Congress, ADC. Compared to the 2014 event when nPDP members, including five serving governors jumped ship to APC, last Tuesday’s defection by rAPC was a much less stunning political event. It could however get worse, or better, depending on how you look at it. From all indications there are many more senators and Reps waiting to jump the APC ship, including the Senate President, the House Speaker and two more governors. 

When the two National Assembly chambers resume from their long recess in September, it will become clear if APC still retains control of both chambers or if PDP will resume control after a three years’ break. Matters were somewhat worsened for APC by the messy defection of Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom. One would have thought that the clashes of farmers and herders made the political atmosphere in Benue State toxic for APC but Ortom seemed to say that he was “given the red card” by former state governor George Akume, who seized control of the state party. Two more governors are in line to defect from APC. If Senate President Saraki goes, Kwara State Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed is certain to follow, and indications are that Sokoto State Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal could ditch APC as early as this week. 

In the statement he issued in the wake of the defections, President Buhari pretended to be non-challant. He said the departing party members were leaving not because of him but because they were barred by zoning from seeking re-election, and he wished them well in their future endeavours. Both claims were not completely accurate. There were as many reasons as there were defecting APC senators and Reps. Some want to run for president; they think they can do better than Buhari and they also fear that, as Northerners, they will be shut out after a Buhari second term because Southerners will lay claim to the ticket in both major parties.

Others may have defected because of local zoning or because they have fallen out with their state governors, who either want the seats for themselves or they have promised the seats to other associates as part of local jockeying. Most senators and Reps cannot hold on to their nomination tickets in the face of opposition from state governors, who firmly control party structures. However, given voters’ new-found power in PVCs and card readers, an MP can conceivably get re-elected on the platform of another party, if he is very popular or if the governor is very unpopular. Some other defectors want to become governors. That means challenging a first term governor or challenging a second term governor’s anointed successor. The former group is found in Kaduna State and the latter group is found in Oyo State. Both situations are politically perilous and an aspirant’s chances are probably better in another political party. 

Defection and cross-carpeting are old political habits in Nigeria, dating back to 1952 when some members of the NCNC were said to have decamped to AG to enable Chief Awolowo to become Premier of the West. I have however seen recent accounts saying it was not a case of defection. In the run up to the Second Republic in 1978-79, the newspapers were replete with stories everyday about politicians defecting from one party to another “with thousands of his supporters.” After NPN came to power in 1979, a lot of other party members defected to it, especially from GNPP and NPP which were ideologically indistinguishable from NPN. This same factor made it possible for many ANPP members to cross over to PDP in 1999-2010, since there was neither ideological nor program difference between the two parties.

Defections are however more potent in the run up to elections. In 1983, the defection of Chief Sunday Afolabi, Chief Akin Omoboriowo and other UPN chieftains enabled NPN to justify its claim to “winning” Oyo and Ondo states. Both PRP and GNPP also split down the middle. The Mahmud Waziri and Nduka Eze GNPP factions teamed up with NPN, while the Aminu Kano-led PRP Tabo faction showed less hostility to NPN than the Governor Abubakar Rimi-led Santsi faction did. That situation enabled NPN to “win” both GNPP states of Borno and Gongola and to capture one PRP state, Kaduna. 2014 was the first case in which a major faction of the ruling party broke away and teamed up with the opposition, enabling the PDP federal government to be brought down at the polls for the first time in Nigeria’s history. Now there is renewed migration in the reverse direction.

Having tried hard and failed to prevent the defections, APC’s highly combative new National Chairman Adams Oshiomhole quickly changed the narrative and began celebrating the departures. He said the defectors were of no electoral value; that Buhari is more popular than each one of them in their constituencies and that the party will be leaner and fitter with their departure. Ortom replied that Oshiomhole was mixing up his role as party chairman with his old role as a labour union leader. Certainly, no chairman will like to see his party losing members, governors and serving MPs at that, least of all because no one knows where the gale of defections will end. It is Oshiomhole’s very difficult duty to identify other likely defectors and convince the president to do what is necessary to keep them around, especially by calling overzealous governors to order. 

If PDP does gain control of both National Assembly chambers, the president and his ministers will breathe uneasily for the remainder of his first term. Buhari strategists will also wonder whether fighting Saraki since 2015 was worth it. They have thrown every missile at him and so far it has not worked. Instead it has brought on APC its biggest self-inflicted crisis. The next, most dangerous step they seem to embark on is the open use of security forces in political quarrels. If they do that again, the Buhari Presidency could very well lose its chummy relations with the Western powers and we could be on the fast track to a pariah nation all over again.

The defectors, too, cannot be sure whether their gamble will pay off or if it will end in tears. PDP that most of them went to is already brimming with its own aspirants for all the available offices. They will put up a fierce resistance to the new comers. It was very much like paying three pence to enter the Kalanda lottery and pitching your luck with the picture of one animal. As the old salesman used to say, there are only two possible outcomes. You either win or you ruin.