Stories of defections have been the dominant themes in Nigerian politics recently, with the two major parties making much propaganda capital out of defections. APC scored the biggest propaganda points with the defection of five PDP governors and a former vice president to its ranks. PDP also tried to make the most out of its own more modest success, the defection of two former governors from APC to it.

Now, I read a passage in a young man's online posting last week where he wrote, "Today's politicians don't know what they are doing. They have brought a new phenomenon into Nigerian politics called defection." Since the writer was described as "an authoritative commentator on Nigerian politics," I thought it is important to remind him that in actual fact, defections are to Nigerian politics what reyco, maggi and knorr cubes are to a well-formed vegetable soup.

Defection and carpet crossing has been a Nigerian political staple since the First Republic, though the details, the styles and the motivations often vary. Defections began in the Second Republic even before the registration of parties by the then FEDECO. After a stormy national convention in Lagos in late 1978, Uncle Waziri Ibrahim pulled his men out of NPP and formed GNPP. Both parties however managed to secure registration, since the main requirement at that time was to have party offices in two thirds of the 19 states.

The name of the game in the four years that the Second Republic lasted was party split rather than lone defections. PRP for example broke up into two bitterly feuding factions, the so-called Tabo [sticky mud] faction led by Malam Aminu Kano and the Santsi [slippery terrain] faction led by Governors Abubakar Rimi and Balarabe Musa as well as PRP's deputy president general Chief Michael Imoudu. How did the two names originate? Soon after Rimi and Balarabe rebelled, Malam Aminu Kano said in a speech that a slippery terrain had swept away some party members. Rimi quickly mounted the hustings and replied that some party members were stuck in the mud.

Even though GNPP was born from a split, it again split in 1980 when Nduka Eze launched a faction, thought to be sponsored by NPN. The issue that led to PRP's split, participation of its two governors in the Nine Progressive Governors' Forum, also led to a schism in GNPP. Its two governors Mohamed Goni of Borno and Abubakar Barde of Gongola parted ways with Uncle Waziri while Senator Mahmud Waziri flouted another GNPP faction allied to NPN. Since FEDECO continued to recognise the factions led by Aminu Kano and Waziri Ibrahim and refused to register PPP which UPN and the PRP/GNPP rebels floated, all four governors looked for a way out.

They couldn't agree on where to go. Each had to consider the path of least political resistance in his own state. UPN leader Obafemi Awolowo was a dangerous sell in Kano, so Rimi carried the Santsi into NPP. Santsi men and women in Kano began to sport Zik-style neck beads called "Owelle style." [The Kwankwasiyya red cap had a historical precedent after all]. Matters came to a head when FEDECO insisted that a governor could not re-contest on the platform of another party, so Rimi resigned his governorship of Kano State, installed his deputy Abdu Dawakin Tofa as governor and then went to contest under NPP's flag.

Across the plains in old Borno State, Alhaji Mohamed Goni and his supporters decided that UPN was acceptable in the state. If nothing else, the Kanuri have a traditional joking relationship with the Yoruba. In fact, Goni's first Secretary to the State Government was a Yoruba man. The only trouble was, unlike Rimi, Goni did not trust his deputy. He therefore proposed a complicated scheme as reported at the time in Halilu Getso's wildly popular FRCN Kaduna program Alkawari Kaya Ne. Goni proposed that his deputy should resign so that his wife, Hajiya Amina Goni, would become the deputy governor. Goni would then resign, Hajiya Amina would become the governor, and the former deputy governor would get his post back. I don't think Nigerian politicians of the modern era have as yet cooked up such a clever defection scheme.

Anyway, before this scheme could be carried out, a court ruled in his favour so Goni stayed put, contested under UPN, got about 39% of the vote but lost to NPN's candidate Alhaji Asheik Jarma. In neighbouring Gongola State, Goni's GNPP colleague Abubakar Barde was about to resign from the governorship when the court verdict came in. He went on to recontest on UPN's platform but he lost to NPN's candidate Bamanga Tukur.

The other major case of Second Republic gubernatorial carpet crossing was in old Cross River. The powerful Senate President Joseph Wayas snatched the NPN ticket away from Governor Clement Isong and awarded it to Senator Donald Etiebet. Isong then led his Ibibio kinsmen in a revolt and they migrated to UPN. He got about 40% of the vote in the 1983 elections but lost to Etiebet.

Major defections also occurred in UPN. The main problem here was that Chief Awolowo wanted the party's five governors to get automatic return tickets but ambitious deputy governors also wanted a shot at the governorships. The big defectors were deputy governor Akin Omoboriowo in old Ondo and Chief Sunday Afolabi in old Oyo. Their defections enabled NPN to grab both State Houses in 1983, though the Supreme Court later returned Ondo to UPN.

Now, big figures mostly did not defect from NPN to other parties but there were cases of disgruntled men who stayed in the party but worked for its defeat, or what is called anti-party activity. The best known such case in the Second Republic was Kwara's Dr. Olusola Saraki, the main factor in UPN candidate Chief Cornelius Adebayo's defeat of Governor Adamu Attah in 1983.

Last week, one writer described Alhaji Attahiru Bafarawa's defection to PDP as dramatic. By Sokoto standards it was not. When GNPP was formed in the old Sokoto State in 1978, its state chairman was Alhaji Muhammadu Maccido Sarkin Kudu, eldest son of Sultan Abubakar III. The story in Sokoto then was that Maccido was personally donated by Sir Abubakar to Uncle Waziri. NPN men then came along and hatched an elaborate scheme to get Maccido, especially after Alhaji Shehu Shagari became NPN's presidential candidate. So at the NPN's state convention at Sokoto Cinema in December 1979, Maccido was elected in absentia as state chairman. For one week no one was sure where he would end up. The riddle was only solved when he appeared at an NPN event.

It is therefore not correct to say that defection is an invention of Fourth Republic politicians. How useful is political defection? As with all things political, it is sometimes potent and at other times hollow. Many an ex-ruler is not as potent politically as he was when he was holding high public but in the history of Nigerian politics; some people became larger than life figures after they left office. Such men included Alhaji Lateef Jakande, Chief Michael Ajasin, Alhaji Balarabe Musa, Chief Bola Ige, Chief Solomon Lar and Abubakar Rimi. Jakande's extremely potent political stature was cut short by a big mistake, when he agreed to be Abacha's Housing Minister in 1993. Most other former political office holders however diminish in stature after they leave office, which is understandable because they no longer control treasuries and appointments, unlimited travel funds, elaborate protocol and high media visibility.

Defectors however serve an important purpose in politics; they could be used to justify the snatching away of a state by crooked means. NPN for example justified its claim to winning Ondo and Oyo states by pointing to the defections of Chief Akin Omoboriowo, Sunday Afolabi and Alhaji Busari Adelakun, strongman of Ibadan politics before Alhaji Lamidi Adedibu's advent. So, while defection is a political knorr cube, it could also be a poison.