by Ike Willie-Nwobu

They generally look laboured as they traverse party lines. Like pregnant women, they labour as they travel, but the guilt unmistakably etched into their faces as they trespass gives them away. These were never labourers of love. They never laboured to deserve their wages. They never laboured not to mislead Nigerians into labouring under the apprehension that they were in it long-term. It was all a labour for lucre after all.

As Nigerians grapple with life under a government they never really bargained for, some legislators elected on the ticket of the Labour Party have left for the ruling All Progressive Congress like rats leaving a sinking ship. They are rats — the worst kind of political vermin — but there is hardly a sinking ship to warrant the jump.

Some of them have craftily argued that the Labour Party is in crisis and warrants their decision to leave the party. But, since they opportunistically meandered their way into the National Assembly, were they not only biding their time all before baring their true colours?

In 2022, as the 2023 general elections beckoned, the customary disarray of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) forced Peter Obi, their best shot at victory by far, to leave the party. His destination was the Labour Party.

Once he pitched his tent with the party, which had languished in political obscurity for many years, his teeming supporters made a beehive for the party. With the Labour Party brought back from the dead, the ruling All Progressives Congress and the PDP got a real run for their money. Many political opportunists took notice too and developed a kind of political parasitism.

When the polls were finally conducted in 2023, Obi who contested for president came a distant third but his popularity was enough to clinch some seats for the Labour Party in other elections nationwide. Many of political neophytes who ran on the platform of the Labour Party benefited.

If Nigerians had high hopes that a more diverse opposition could enliven the often painfully pedestrian politics of the National Assembly, those hopes have not materialized. The opposition in the National Assembly has been an unmitigated disaster under a government that has been an unmitigated disaster itself.

The defecting legislators were always going to move to the ruling party or other political parties. It was always a question of time. It is not so much about joining the ruling or winning party as it is about the lack of ideology that underpins the politics of the average Nigerian politician. With many of them dipping into deep pockets to dink their way into political offices, it is always about their pockets once they get in. They relegate service to the background and focus on how much they can make once they get in.

In the case of the defecting legislators, they appear to be the worst kind of opportunists around. Electioneering in Nigeria is forbiddingly expensive. Many who seek political offices have to take out loans to sustain their campaigns in addition selling off personal property.

But during the last election, many of those who won elections into political offices on the platform of the Labour Party won on a platter of gold. They did not have to spend as much as candidates of other political parties. They counted on the goodwill of Peter Obi. Many Nigerians voted for them and Labour Party because of Obi’s presence in the party.

In any case, those legislators who benefited from the goodwill of the Labour Party could easily have been outspent by the candidates of other political parties.

Their defection must be viewed as an act of betrayal. While it would be wishful thinking to expect that the law on cross carpeting will be activated to imperil their political careers, their constituents will do well to remember them and the fact they have neither honour nor moral heft.

*Willie-Nwobu can be reached at ikewilly9@gmail.com