THE DANGER OF PARTY PROSTITUTION WHICH WE HAVE CHRISTENED “DECAMPING”
Opinion
By Nkem Ossai
Who is actually a decampee?
In Nigeria: It is said to be a person who has switched political parties.
However, AI has a different meaning. Decampee says AI, “is likely a person who has been displaced or forced to flee their home or camp, often due to conflict, natural disasters, or other crises. The term might be related to “camp” and “displaced” or “evacuee.”
AI’s Contextual definition says, “decampees might refer specifically to individuals or groups who have had to leave their camps or settlements due to various reasons like insecurity, environmental factors, or government actions.”
In this context, decamping or decampee has a different meaning elsewhere. By implication, only Nigeria uses the word to mean an act of flip flopping.
There is no doubt that we are in a ceremonious though unholy season of decampees. This is truly an indication of both the quality of politicians we are breeding, the quality of political culture we are developing and enthroning for generations coming after us.
This unholy movement termed “decamping” for me, is material chase, aggrandisement, desire for endless power and fear of loosing it. So, in their minds, they have now joined the rigging train, sorry the winning train. What a people! What a defeatist culture we are enthroning..
Prof. Osita Ogbu (a renowned economist) notes that mindset is everything. It is this mindset that tells these decampees that the only way to win election is by cheating or rigging. They have tragically come to believing that the bigger parties are “rigging consultants.”
For generations, we battled the many military regimes in Nigeria to have a semblance of democracy but now, we are working hard to turn it to demon-cracy. For years on end, a lot of people sacrificed their lives battling the military regimes to bring about democratic processes. Now, this is what we have come to make of it – DECAMPING from one party to another like refugees and like hookup teens. What is actually wrong in the DNA of Nigerian politicians? Why are they so afraid of challenges? What kind of education did these people acquire without principle, without philosophy and without dignity? In seeking to live their high roller lives forever, they have rejected the thousands even millions of people who supported them when it mattered for a cheap life of luxury. Do they not know that many people who supported them did so to escape the evil that has become the other bigger parties? Couldn’t they have considered the pains, the frustration and disappointments they would go through with this abandonment? By this, they have worsened the already dampened spirits of the average voter. One cannot but ask, why did the Nigeria laws make it so easy to criss cross the political parties? Is this not an open call for instability?
It is stupefying to note that Peter Obi gave a leeway to these men and perhaps women when it mattered; when they were abandoned and thrown away by the parties they are now returning to. How actually does the thought process of an average black man works. Does this not amount to one returning to his vomit? I feel terribly shocked that people who called President TINUBU all sorts of nasty names and made merry with his illegitimacy, are now kneeling before his (almighty) alter and pleading to be accepted as members of his party. What a twist of fate! What a shameless inclination.
We must always consider the weight of our decisions on others because, it will forever remain a burden that faces inevitable sad consequences.
Truly, a new Nigeria is possible only if there can be a change of mindset, orientation and a complete departure from our attitudinal hopelessness. It is all about putting the good of the country before our insatiable needs.
