PARTY AGENDA OR PERSONAL AGENDA?

Nigeria is said to have copied her system of government: Democracy, from the United States of America. However, looking at the state of the nation in terms of politics, one can only wonder in confusion what went wrong in the process. Coincidentally, Nigeria speaks English as an official language just like the U.S.A; otherwise we might have been forced to say something went wrong during the translation process.

In the U.S.A, there are only two political parties, the Republican party and the Democratic party. These 2 parties have totally different ideologies about the almost everything that relates to the economy and welfare of the citizens in general. For example, the Democrats believe in the rich paying higher tax so that the middle and low class earners can have a better life while the Republican believes in taxing the middle-class more so as to enable the rich use their money in developing the economy. As a result of this, it is so rare or almost impossible to see a member one party defecting to the other.
In Nigeria, even though we claim to operate multi-party system, these political parties seems to be just a podium for politicians to launch their political agenda and ambition. Hence, when they are not favored in a particular political party, they quickly switch their allegiance to another. Some even form a new one by themselves. During the last general elections, INEC recorded about 50 political parties. These parties made the ballot papers for voting so lengthy thereby making the voting process cumbersome. The most annoying of all was the fact some of the parties didn't even clinch a councillorship seat in a local government ward.
Presently, in the National assembly, a serious power tussle is going on between the nations two top political parties. Members of the national assembly are defecting from one to the other to gain majority. A court has ruled in the former's favor declaring the seats of the defectors vacant. The defecting houses of assembly members are now appealing the ruling in a higher court. A similar case was also filed in court against the Imo state governor by his former party claiming that his defection to another party is unconstitutional since the new party has different manifesto and policy. If these various parties actually had an agenda or a manifesto or policy, call it whatever you like, will it be easy for a member to suddenly switch allegiance at a sudden whim? All in the name of being aggrieved. It's high time we tell ourselves the truth. The world is watching, Africa is watching…
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TEMI AKUIRENE
@temiakuireneCFR
POLITICS/NATIONAL ISSUES