Nigeria not one-party state, politicians only playing for survival, by Bamidele Johnson
Nigeria is not about to become a one-party state. It is pure poppycock to say it is. A real one-party state would look like what existed in the old Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Romania and Poland or what still thrives in Cuba and North Korea. As yet, nobody has held a secret meetings in a smoky room to decide that only one political voice should echo across the land.
Our case is more Nigerian. We have many parties, including those that exist only on paper but founded by the same power entrepreneurs who founded the behemoths. Peel away the party labels and you will find the same people, the same interests and the same spectacular absence of ideology. Somehow, the public has managed to fool itself into believing the parties are different.
When politicians start migrating en masse to a ruling party, it is never a flash of ideological awakening. They are not running to serve; they are running to survive. And as every Nigerian knows, survival is the first ideology. The public, of course, does not get the memo. We keep calling them shameless. But ask those shouting “shame” if they would not have been shouting sannu da zuwa, nno, ekaabo or welcome if the defections had gone in the other direction. Nigerians do not hate defections; they only hate where the defections are headed. If these same politicians were fleeing the APC like a skyscraper on fire, the crowd would be cheering and composing victory tweets. It is never about principle; it is always about power. Not the Abidoshakar or Ganduka Gandusa variety, though.
In truth, what we have is not a multi-party democracy but a one-party carnival. Everyone is dancing to the same drumbeat of ambition; only the costumes change. The parties are not distinguished by ideology, and politicians swap slogans the way footballers change clubs-for better pay, not better play.
Nigeria is not a one-party state. It is something far more entertaining: a one-party mindset operating under different names, all of which could easily be merged into one grand movement and Personal Convenience Party (PCP).
