It was like a bolt from the blue, at an Abuja high court, when Justice Inyang Ekwo unseated Ebonyi State governor, Dave Umehi, strictly on the grounds of violating the relevant section of Nigerian Constitution by crossing the carpet from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to All Progressives Congress (APC). Gov. Umahi’s political misfortune came three years into his second term tenure, barely a year to his exit from office. Why was that judgment a surprise, if not a shock?

The story goes back to the First Republic when politicians of all parties made nonsense of Nigerian Constitution in arrogantly and daringly changing their party allegiance not, as might have been expected, on grounds of principle but for personal political and commercial purposes unknown anywhere in the world. In Nigeria, carpet-crossing became an instrument for grabbing power, especially at the regional level, when instigated by a powerful group. The sole aim? To secure a majority in the legislature in a shameless manner and in a desperate attempt to establish political standing, as the emerging ruling party would guard the interests of the decampees more than mother hen guarantees the existence of young chickens.

The first known notorious carpet-crossing in Nigerian politics occurred in the defunct Western Region in 1952, when one of the parties, the Action Group (AG), supplanted the rival National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) with a strange unconstitutional dogma of “East for easterners, West for westerners and North for northerners.”

So emotional was the dogma that the aim was unmistaking for the vested interests and unmistaken by the victims. There were four constitutions in Nigeria at that time, one for each of the three regions and the federal constitution. None of the constitutions ever stipulated that a candidate must necessarily be an indigene to be strictly qualified to contest or form the government of any particular region. Why did it not occur to the election pranksters to make their ethnic solidarity call an election issue throughout the campaigns for the 1951 West regional elections? The base, mischievous and misleading appeal to base jingoism was a poisonous slogan/ideology and became convenient not only for grabbing power but to also deprive the rival party, NCNC, of every chance of forming the government of Western Region.

To worsen matters, so short-sighted were the proponents/initiators of carpet-crossing that the policy laid the foundation for inevitable intermittent upheaval in Nigerian polity. Only a decade later, the very political gang in the same defunct Western Region became mutual enemies arising from the internal crisis in the AG, the ruling party. Within a short time, a new party, the United Peoples Party, was founded in the same Western Region to offer an impregnable platform for members of regional premier Chief S.L. Akintola’s faction of the feuding Action Group, distinct from the remaining faction loyal to Action Group leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who, then, had been handicapped with the alleged treason trial he was facing.

Initially, to solidify the new ruling party in the West, the United People’s Party, under the premier, Chief Akintola, the opposition NCNC in the West, led by Remi Fani-Kayode, a former Action Grouper who lost his eat in Ile Ife in the 1959 federal elections to an independent candidate ( Michael Omisade), entered a political marriage of convenience, described as an alliance, with Chief Akintola’s UPP. The fraudulent political intent emerged later when almost the entire NCNC members crossed the carpet to become UPP members of Western House of Assembly. Only one NCNC member, Richard Akinyemi, from today’s Ondo State, retained his reputation with the distinction of being the lone NCNC opposition member in Western House of Assembly who did not cross.

By the way, almost all NCNC members who crossed the carpet to Action Group in Western Region in January 1952 were defeated by substitute NCNC candidates in the 1956 elections to Western House of Assembly. Earlier in the 1954 federal elections to the House of Representatives in Lagos, NCNC easily won the West.

In leading NCNC members to cross the carpet to Chief Akintola’s United People’s Party in 1963, Remi Fani-Kayode in a classic case of political fraud, suddenly dissolved not only his NCNC political identity but, along with his fellow carpet-crossers, joined Chief Akintola and his UPP members to found a new party, the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP). Thus, carpet-crossing, introduced into Nigerian politics in Western Region in 1952, became by 1963 so disgusting for the electorate in Nigerian politics and went a long way to create disillusionment all over the country even though, for practical purposes, only Lagos and the defunct Western Region tasted the  political poison of carpet-crossing.

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Despite the mutual bitterness of the civil war and almost 10 years of reparations and reconciliation, so unforgettable was the electoral poison of carpet-crossing that old as well aspiring new politicians and the departing soldiers all combined efforts to specify in the 1979 Nigerian constitution that any carpet-crosser from any party would forfeit his elected seat to enable him contest fresh elections on the platform of his new party. Within four years after 1979, opposition members from NPP and UPN pooh-poohed the law against carpet-crossing by joining the ruling National Party of Nigeria.

Still, the law against carpet-crossing in Nigerian politics was tightened under the 1999 constitution. But the violators were former army officers, who, as politicians, welcomed carpet-crossers without compelling them to comply with the constitution by resigning to re-contest their seats in the legislature. The first was ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo who snatched Senators Seye Ogunlewe and Musiliu Obanikoro. The two were appointed ministers in the rival PDP government’s federal cabinet.

The carpet-crossing under President Muhammadu Buhari has been no less disturbing. Particularly worrying is Buhari’s seeming indifference, an implied encouragement and perhaps incitement to the carpet-crossers. Whether on trial at any law court for looting public treasury during the accused’s tenure as PDP governor, minister or spokesperson or under interrogation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for the same accusation, Buhari’s demeanour inevitably offered sanctuary for these thieves from two sources. Either they joined the ruling APC, which would eventually offer them ministerial appointment while the EFCC thereafter dilly-dallied with, or completely abandoned, whatever on-going criminal trial. With the complicity of judges presiding over such trials? It was always not clear.

Hence, such cases being investigated by the EFCC or being tried by law courts had at best been in abeyance as far back as 2007. So far, only two accused from the North, ex-governors Joshua Dariye (Plateau) and Jolly Nyame (Taraba), are in jail serving terms. Perhaps, they forgot to cross the carpet. Otherwise,  their sanctuary would have since been assured. Whatever happened to the promised fight against corruption!

If we return to the unfortunate gamble of Dave Umahi, in crossing the carpet to APC while he sat tight in Government House, Abakaliki, probably misread or misunderstood Buhari’s assurance delivered by Boss Mustapha, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, at a public rally in Abakaliki about 2017 that South East would be offered the privilege of producing Nigeria’s President in 2023. Since then, Umahi had been more of an APC governor than a PDP governor in the same seat. But he was smart, even if not so smart, to ensure he got re-elected as PDP governor in 2019. Only after that certainty was Umahi bold enough to go real to take the plunge to APC.

This long background to the inception of political carpet-crossing in Nigeria is very essential to explain why and how Gov. Umahi was ordered by a law court to chuck himself out of Government House, Abakaliki. Better still, the fact that, since 1979 and 1999, others had been contemptuously violating Nigerian constitution on how NOT to carpet-cross encouraged Umahi to join suit. But with one of Umahi’s leg inside Government House and his other leg along with his frame completely outside, the PDP felt very upset and approched a law court for interpretation of that posture on whose leg “…Umahi dey stand?”

Justice Ekwo has emerged the judge of the moment. Who today, remembers any of those holding opposite view in the past? That is the virtue of those with personal distinction. But, hold it. Justice Ekwo has sent jitters among potential carpet-crossers on their uncertain fate. That is why the promised appeal is being eagerly awaited. Furthermore, with one governor already removed and another governor legalised to take over, who will bear the cost of the battalion of SANs at the appeal? Who says there is poverty in Nigeria? Happy harvest for the SANs.