Gov. Peter Mbah has left the PDP for the ruling party. Gov. Diri is packing his defection bags. Gov. Soludo is proposing an alliance of the progressives: a capitulation that spares him the tag of a defector. Fubara is a caged bird. Adeleke is keen to defect. By 2027, all the state governors in the south could be with the president, fanning his ego, finagling votes for him.

The governors do not defect with their families alone. They move with almost all government functionaries in their states. Often they claim they are defecting to reposition their states for greater synergy with Tinubu. In other words, they don’t want their states to be shortchanged in the current capricious setting. Other times they explain their defection as a token of gratitude to a benevolent president who saved them by not devouring them. In all likelihood, therefore, if the president loses the 2027 presidential election to the opposition, these governors will gallantly shift political tents to the next president, to lick his muddy boots in the interest of national unity. What our politicians cannot bastardise does not exist.

Otherwise intelligent men, peddling poorly concocted afterthoughts like brilliant ideas. And that’s putting it mildly. Gov. Diri has said he can’t fathom why they are defecting. Indeed, the country doesn’t benefit from opposition governors behaving like bedraggled chickens. Many governors of today are errand boys. Some are political greenhorns. The days of Lateef Jakande and Mbakwe are gone. Now we have Fubara, who is owned by the mercurial Wike. We have Okpebholo, who takes Tinubu for a tin god. We have Umo Eno, who was installed by Udom and can’t stand up to Akpabio. We have Mbah, whose commercial instincts can’t let him say “mba” to Tinubu. This multiplicity of governors who have neither political nor philosophical gravitas has enabled this swirling perfidy. This perfidy exposes the rot—parties as personal fiefdoms, not people’s forums. Taraba’s Agbu Kefas might flip next month.

 There is no better way to castrate democracy than to amputate the opposition. The public knows the truth. The governors are defecting partly because they lack courage and partly because the terrain has been made treacherous. The timid governors aren’t willing to challenge the antics of the president. They are emigrating for political self-preservation reasons. Some do not want to be cheap objects of vengeance. Some do not want to be the subject of a predatory political rivalry instigated by the presidency. In summary, besides carnivorous competition, they dread the potential of persecution and prosecution. They are seeking refuge from the presidency by running into the ruling party to serve the president.

So besides the fear of persecution and prosecution, the other factor that has catalyzed the scampering of opposition governors into the ruling party is the slow liquidation of the opposition parties.

The floors of the boats of the opposition have been damaged. Water is trickling in. Pirates from the ruling party are hovering in the horizon. The governors are fleeing to safety. The president says he owes the opposition no helping hand. But he owes this country the sustenance of multiparty democracy. This clandestine dismantling of the opposition will guarantee Tinubu a re-election but can push the country to the precipice. In a time of economic hardship, the people can trust the opposition to voice their feelings. When the opposition disappears, that buffer is gone. So besides being an electable alternative, the opposition helps in controlled ventilation and decompression of a heated populace. When the opposition is wiped out, that valve is destroyed, and the country is at a greater risk of exploding.

Our political parties are bolekajas servicing the shallow ambitions of politicians. We have stopped pretending that our parties have ideologies. In the ’80s we had the NPN, PRP, and UPN. Most people knew what they stood for. The current parties are so amorphous they can be five sticky fingers of an idle hand. Yet the destruction of the opposition, even a dysfunctional one, eliminates a critical shock absorber. So besides helping the ruling party by keeping it on its toes and preventing it from slumbering, the presence of a robust opposition delays the speed of descent to the point of hopelessness.

The unity of Nigeria has been mediated by the rivalry of opposing parties. In the ’60s we had AG and NCNC in the south and NPC in the north. These parties carried the feelings and sentiments to the national stage to interact with other interests. Those fault lines vented regional steam, mediated unity through competition, and kept the center from calcifying into autocracy. In the ’80s we had UPN and NPP in the south and NPN, PRP, and GNPP in the north. The parties gave different sections a sense of participation. In the early Fourth Republic we had AD, PDP, and ANPP dominating. Different sections and groups found niches in the different parties. The parties may have failed woefully to bring development. But they helped to keep the country intact.

This incipient homogenisation of the political space will birth alienation and anomie. Apart from being the precursor of a civilian autocracy, this pigeonholing of everybody into Tinubu’s party will make the country lose political elasticity. Allowing different sections of the country to align with different parties acts to decompress the country.

Can the opposition reinvent before 2027, or is this the death rattle?