Date: 2018-07-26

Press Statement Recent mass defections of some members of All Progressives Congress in the National Assembly to the opposition PDP, tasks all stakeholders in Nigerian democratic project to urgently revisit the conclusions of 2014 National Confab with respect to carpet crossing.

Comrade Issa Aremu in a statement said mass cross carpeting of some legislators from the ruling APC to PDP and other Political Parties calls for what he calls for "quality control" of the nation's political process.

Comrade Aremu who recently declared his intention to contest for the governorship post in Kwara State in 2019 said it was a sad commentary that 20 years after democratic process, Nigeria parades "quantitative" politicians as distinct from "quality" politicians adding that increasingly politicians "lack clear principles, cheaply stand for nothing but fall for anything that leads to power". He regretted that Political parties have sadly become "hired vehicles with which some politicians move from pillars to posts in a desperate move to be in office for power and money rather than for public service." "Defections, shameless carpet crossing and non-issue based statements have become the order of the day," he observed. "Electorates are increasingly confused as they are made to be in a party in the morning, ask to move to another party in the afternoon and at night defect to another party." Comrade Aremu said.

Comrade Aremu who was also a labour delegate to 2014 confab called for a revisit of the resolution of the Confab which says that Section 68(g) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), be further amended to indicate that any elected official, executive or legislative, who carpet-cross, regardless of the reasons for such, shall automatically forfeit their seat". Comrade Aremu said it was time Nigeria produced "politicians with staying power and discourage butterfly politicians who move from one nest to another in search of political honey."

He decried absence of political ideology which he said was undermining Nigeria democracy adding that "no political party should be so-called or ascribed an opposition status if it lacks alternative implementable policy ideas on security, re-electrification of the country, re-industrialisation, insecurity, unemployment, wage and pension payments. "In 2019, electorate should judge candidates and parties by the quality of its programmes and ideology not the quantity of their bribes and rice and beans".