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Political defections, transactional politics and the dangerous assumption that public mandates can be transferred like private property.

There is something profoundly troubling about a political culture in which politicians can campaign under one party, win the people’s mandate, abandon that party when circumstances become inconvenient, join another political platform and then return to the same electorate demanding another term as though nothing has happened.

This is not simply a question of party loyalty. It is a question of democratic accountability.

It is also one of the strongest reasons Nigerians should resist the proposition that the All Progressives Congress (APC), under President Bola Tinubu, deserves an automatic return to power in 2027.

The APC’s political fortunes have been strengthened by defections from opposition parties, including the movement of governors elected on the platforms of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) into the ruling party. Such defections may be constitutionally permissible, but their political implications cannot be wished away.

When governors who obtained their mandates under the banner of one party move to another and subsequently urge their constituents to vote for them again under the new platform, they must expect questions.

What has changed?

What informed the decision?

Were the interests of the electorate central to the move, or were calculations about political survival, access to power and the approaching election decisive?

And why should voters assume that a governor who changed the political terms of his mandate without securing a fresh electoral endorsement has automatically retained the confidence of those who elected him?

These are legitimate democratic questions, not acts of political hostility.

The governors who sold their mandates

A governor’s electoral mandate is not a personal possession. It is a public trust conferred by voters who make their choices on the basis of candidates, political platforms, programmes and promises.

A governor may have legal and political grounds to defect. But legality does not end the argument about political morality.

The electorate retains the right to ask whether the decision was consistent with the commitments under which the governor was elected and whether it has produced tangible benefits for the state.

The phrase selling the people’s mandate captures the anger many voters feel when they perceive that an elected official has exchanged the political platform on which he won office for the advantages of association with the ruling party.

It should not be treated as proof that every defection was motivated by personal gain. Motives must be assessed on the evidence. But neither should governors expect the public to accept their explanations without scrutiny.

If the argument is that joining the APC will bring more development to the state, let the governors demonstrate the results.

Which projects have been accelerated? Which federal commitments have been secured? What improvements have occurred in roads, healthcare, education, electricity, employment and public safety? What has changed in the lives of the people since the defection?

A new party membership card is not a development project. A new political alliance is not a functioning hospital. The announcement of a defection does not put food on a family’s table.

And the arrival of a governor from the PDP does not automatically mean that the people who voted for that governor have become APC supporters.

Voters are citizens with independent judgment, not political luggage to be delivered alongside a governor.

The APC should understand this distinction. A growing list of defecting officeholders may improve its electoral calculations, but it does not necessarily strengthen its moral claim to public support.

Indeed, when political defections appear to be driven more by the convenience of incumbents than by the demands of the electorate, they reinforce the perception that Nigeria’s political establishment is primarily concerned with preserving access to power.

That perception is dangerous because it weakens the connection between elections and public accountability.

The ballot belongs to the voter. It does not belong to the governor who won it, the party that sponsored him or the political godfather who helped him secure the ticket.

The politics of stomach infrastructure must end

The reported remarks of the Emir of Katsina, Alhaji Abdulmumini Kabir Usman, provide another reason for concern.

According to the account of his confrontation with APC campaign leaders, the Emir criticised politicians who appear before voters with rice and money during elections but fail to address the deeper problems facing their communities.

His reported observation that voters could collect campaign inducements and still vote according to their conscience captured a fundamental weakness in the politics of transactional patronage.

For too long, Nigerian politics has been distorted by the assumption that poverty can be exploited as an electoral instrument.

A hungry person is offered a bag of rice. A struggling household receives a token payment. A crowd is assembled. Party officials declare the event a demonstration of popular enthusiasm. Politicians interpret temporary material inducements as evidence of political loyalty.

But a bag of rice is not a development plan. A cash handout is not an employment programme. A campaign gift is not a substitute for public healthcare, education, security or economic opportunity.

Worse, when political actors distribute money in an environment of widespread deprivation, they risk exploiting the very hardship that good governance should be addressing.

Citizens who accept campaign gifts should not be presumed to have surrendered their voting rights or their independent judgment. Nor should anyone imagine that a poor voter owes a politician a vote in exchange for a gift that cannot sustain a household beyond a few days.

The relationship between government and citizen must be more dignified than this.

Citizens pay taxes, comply with laws, contribute labour, sustain businesses and support their communities. In return, they are entitled to expect public institutions that function, infrastructure that works and leaders who can be held accountable.

The APC cannot turn economic distress into an electoral advantage and then claim a renewed mandate as proof that its policies enjoy overwhelming popular approval.

If Nigerians have been reduced to choosing between temporary relief and continued hardship, the proper response is not to celebrate the arrangement. It is to demand a politics that offers citizens something more durable than campaign-season generosity.

The country needs productive jobs, stable prices, functioning schools, accessible healthcare, dependable electricity, safe roads and communities protected from violence.

It does not need another contest in which political parties compete over who can distribute more food packages to people whose circumstances make those packages urgently necessary.

The real scandal is not that a hungry citizen accepts food. It is that a political system can repeatedly present food as a substitute for the governance that would make such desperation less widespread.

What is the value of power if citizens cannot live in safety?

Security is one of the most fundamental responsibilities of any government. Without it, education is disrupted, commerce is constrained, farming becomes dangerous and communities lose confidence in their future.

The account of the Emir of Katsina’s reported remarks referred to school closures, farmers unable to reach their fields and ransom payments demanded by bandits. Those specific claims require independent verification, but the concerns they express reflect the devastating consequences insecurity can have wherever it persists.

A government cannot ask a community to judge its performance solely by the number of projects commissioned if people remain afraid to travel, work or send their children to school.

Nor should political leaders be permitted to treat insecurity as an unfortunate backdrop to campaign events rather than a central measure of their performance.

When politicians are preoccupied with who will secure a ticket in 2027, citizens are entitled to ask what has happened to the urgency with which their safety was promised.

When communities are endangered, the first responsibility of political leadership is not to organise another campaign structure. It is to mobilise the institutions, resources and operational capacity needed to protect lives.

No responsible argument against the APC should suggest that every security failure began with Tinubu or that the Federal Government alone controls every operational response. Nigeria’s security challenges have deep roots and require coordinated action across federal, state and local institutions.

But the existence of inherited problems does not absolve a sitting government of responsibility for its own record.

The relevant questions are straightforward: What has improved since the administration took office? Which threats have been contained? Which communities are safer? How effectively are security resources deployed? What measurable progress can be demonstrated?

And where the answers are unsatisfactory, why should Nigerians automatically renew the mandate of those responsible for delivering better results?

The same questions must confront state governors and local-government officials. Security is not a campaign accessory. It is a condition for economic activity, social development and human dignity.

A farmer who cannot safely reach his land cannot contribute fully to food production. A child who cannot attend school because of insecurity is denied an opportunity that no political speech can replace. A business that cannot operate safely cannot create the jobs a community needs.

Political leaders must therefore be judged by their response to the dangers confronting the people, not merely by their ability to organise another electoral campaign.

The APC’s record must be judged at every level

The argument against an automatic return of the APC to power must extend beyond the presidency.

The party’s federal, state and local-government candidates should all face rigorous scrutiny of their records, promises and capacity to deliver.

But this must not be confused with the claim that every APC officeholder has failed or that every opposition candidate is necessarily better. Such sweeping claims would substitute partisan prejudice for serious political judgment.

The proper argument is that party affiliation must not provide a shield against accountability.

At the federal level, Tinubu must answer for the economic consequences of his administration’s policies, the adequacy of protections for vulnerable citizens, the performance of public institutions and the results achieved in security, employment and essential services.

At the state level, APC governors must explain what they have done with public revenue, how effectively they have managed education and healthcare, what improvements they have delivered in infrastructure, how they have addressed unemployment and whether their budgets have produced tangible benefits for residents.

At the local-government level, candidates must be questioned about primary healthcare, sanitation, rural roads, markets, local economic development and the basic services that directly affect daily life.

The same scrutiny should apply to the PDP and every other political platform.

The point is not to grant opposition parties an undeserved certificate of competence. It is to reject the idea that the APC is entitled to another mandate merely because it currently occupies positions of power or has attracted political defectors.

If an APC candidate has performed well, that candidate should make the case with evidence. If an opposition candidate has a better record, stronger plans and greater credibility, voters should be free to consider that alternative.

What must end is the presumption that the ruling party’s access to government machinery, political influence and campaign resources makes its return inevitable or inherently desirable.

Democracy is not a hereditary estate. Public office is not a permanent entitlement. Political parties are not entitled to govern until they decide to retire.

They must earn the people’s confidence repeatedly.

Nigerians are tired of transactional politics

The danger facing Nigeria’s democracy is not merely the contest between the APC and its rivals. It is the normalisation of a political culture in which personal ambition routinely takes precedence over public commitments.

Politicians defect when their calculations change. Parties welcome defectors when doing so strengthens their electoral arithmetic. Officeholders demand another term while offering little explanation for abandoned promises. Campaigns focus on alliances, tickets, endorsements and the distribution of inducements.

Meanwhile, the ordinary citizen is expected to remain loyal.

This arrangement is unsustainable.

A political party that receives a governor from a rival party may celebrate the acquisition as a strategic victory. But it should not confuse the governor’s arrival with the transfer of millions of citizens’ political allegiance.

A governor who changes parties may gain a new political platform. But the people retain their right to judge whether the decision reflects their interests.

And a president who presides over painful economic adjustments may defend them as necessary. But the people retain the right to decide whether the outcomes justify another four years.

The APC’s political strength, its incumbency and the number of governors or influential politicians it attracts cannot substitute for the consent of the electorate.

Nor should the opposition imagine that public frustration automatically guarantees its victory. Anyone asking Nigerians to reject the APC must offer credible alternatives, realistic policies, competent candidates and a demonstrable commitment to public service.

The electorate deserves choices, not merely complaints.

The ultimate objective must be to move Nigeria away from politics as a marketplace for the ambitions of officeholders and towards politics as an instrument of public service.

The message to the political class is simple: Nigerians are not merchandise. Their votes are not transferable assets. Their mandates are not private property.

And their suffering must not become an opportunity for political profiteering.

To be continued in Part 3: Why Renewed Hope cannot become an indefinite demand for patience, and why the 2027 verdict must be earned rather than purchased.