The Judases of Democracy: How political elites undermine voter’s mandate, by Stephanie Shaakaa
What is the point of voting for an opposition party if the people elected under its banner eventually help the president they opposed to secure another term?
Nigerians have reason to ask this question following the inclusion of Nyesom Wike of the Peoples Democratic Party, Chukwuma Soludo of the All Progressives Grand Alliance and Ademola Adeleke of the Accord Party in President Bola Tinubu’s re-election campaign machinery as coordinators for the FCT and Rivers State, Anambra State, and Osun State respectively. Their involvement brings into focus a contradiction that Nigerian politics has tolerated for too long: politicians ask citizens to believe in competing political platforms, yet those same platforms appear increasingly expendable when powerful individuals calculate their next move.
The issue is not whether politicians from different parties should work together. A governor must be able to cooperate with the president on security, infrastructure and development without being accused of disloyalty. Citizens should not suffer because their representatives belong to opposing parties. But helping a president govern is different from helping him win another term. One concerns the responsibilities of public office, the other concerns who should continue to exercise power.
Different party cards, same pocket.
That difference demands an explanation.
During elections, parties insist that their differences matter. They present competing programmes, criticise their opponents and ask Nigerians to trust them with the country’s future. Supporters defend those positions, spend their money and sometimes damage personal relationships over political choices they believe are important. Yet when influential politicians change direction, ordinary members are left to reconcile the contradiction between the arguments they once defended and the alliances their leaders now pursue.
Different party cards, same pocket.
The defence will be familiar: politics is about interests, alliances are inevitable, and no politician should be imprisoned by yesterday’s affiliations. There is truth in all three arguments. A democracy cannot function if political opponents are forbidden from cooperating, and a politician has every right to reconsider his position.
But the freedom to change political allegiance does not remove the obligation to explain consequential decisions to the electorate. If Wike, Soludo and Adeleke believe Tinubu deserves another term, Nigerians should hear their reasons. Which achievements have convinced them? What shortcomings in the administration’s record do they consider acceptable, and what do they expect a second term to accomplish? Why should voters who elected them under different party banners accept their judgement about the presidency?
These are legitimate questions, not demands for permanent hostility between political parties.
Nor should the participation of individual politicians automatically be confused with a formal endorsement by their respective parties. The distinction matters. But it does not erase the implications of their decisions, especially when elected officials help organise the re-election campaign of a president whose party competes against theirs. Their supporters deserve to know whether these arrangements represent personal political choices or a wider shift in the direction of the opposition.
The deeper concern is what happens to democratic competition when the people expected to provide an alternative become involved in preserving the incumbent’s power.
An opposition party is not simply a collection of politicians who failed to win the presidency. Its purpose is to scrutinise government, expose failures and persuade voters that another course is possible. Citizens dissatisfied with the administration need a credible alternative, not merely another collection of ambitious politicians waiting for an opportunity to negotiate their way into the ruling party’s favour.
A party may retain its name, offices and candidates while losing the independence that gives it political meaning. It may contest elections without convincing the public that it represents a genuinely different approach to governing. When its influential members help the incumbent pursue another term, the electorate has every reason to ask what distinguishes the opposition’s political ambitions from those of the government it should be prepared to replace.
For a parent struggling to pay school fees, a trader watching the cost of restocking rise or a young graduate searching for work, these manoeuvres are not an entertaining contest among political heavyweights. Such citizens need to know what a different government would do differently. They need parties capable of translating public frustration into workable policies and explaining how those policies would improve daily life. If the people expected to build that alternative are helping the incumbent return to office, the public deserves more than the familiar excuse that politics is a game of interests.
The ruling party should not mistake the support of influential politicians for proof that the president deserves another term. A campaign council may demonstrate the reach of an incumbent’s political network, but it cannot settle the question of performance. Endorsements by powerful individuals are not a substitute for an honest assessment of the government’s record, and political alliances cannot confer a mandate that only voters can give.
The title of this essay is deliberately severe. Not every alliance across party lines constitutes betrayal, and changing one’s political position is not automatically an act of dishonesty. The betrayal becomes a legitimate subject of public scrutiny when politicians expect citizens to take party differences seriously at election time but offer little explanation when those differences become inconvenient to their own ambitions.
The electorate does not own the private convictions of its representatives. It does, however, have a right to question decisions that affect the meaning of the mandate it has given them.
As 2027 approaches, the responsibility rests not only on Wike, Soludo and Adeleke but also on the parties they represent and the ruling party seeking to benefit from their involvement. The politicians must explain their choices. Their parties must clarify what they stand for. The APC must defend Tinubu’s record on its merits rather than rely on the number of influential figures it can gather around his campaign.
Above all, Nigerians must refuse to accept that political convenience is an adequate substitute for political accountability.
A democracy can survive defections, shifting alliances and politicians who change their minds. What it cannot afford is an electorate that gradually loses faith in the possibility of meaningful change because those expected to offer an alternative appear increasingly comfortable helping the incumbent remain in power.
The gravest betrayal is not simply that opposition politicians may help a president win another term. It is that the voters who entrusted them with the promise of a different political future may discover that their representatives have helped close the very door through which that future was supposed to arrive.
When that happens, the ballot remains in the citizen’s hand, but the meaning of the choice becomes harder to defend. And when voters begin to wonder whether the political class has already settled its differences before they enter the polling booth, democracy has a problem far greater than disloyal politicians.
It has a crisis of trust.
Stephanie Shaakaa, shaakaastephanie@yahoo.com, 08078600871
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