Orji Uzor Kalu, Former Abia State Governor has expressed concern at the gale of defections hitting major political parties.
DAILY POST reports that in recent weeks, governors, lawmakers and other top members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) have cross-carpeted along with their supporters.
Speaking, Kalu said the trend would only stop if parties are “ideologically driven”.
“This defines the policies and programmes they pursue when they are in government”, he told NAN on Sunday.
“The major political ideologies vary from socialist, liberal, capitalist, welfarist and progressives.
“This is what has defined key democratic societies like the USA, UK, France, India and Japan.
“But for Nigeria, there seems to be dearth of political parties driven by ideology”.
He, however, emphasised that loopholes in the constitution allowed politicians to defect from one political party to another.
“You cannot stop people defecting from one political party to another because it is absolutely their choice.
“This is possible as long as you have political parties without ideologies.
“What they are doing is every four years they change from one political party to another.
“People continue defecting from one political party to another and nobody talks about what to do for the masses who own the resources.
“They only talk about themselves; so I want Nigerian politicians to discuss how we are going to be of use to the people that own these resources.
“You can also see that because the various tiers of government, individuals and corporate entities have no respect for the decisions of the courts, it is making defection and other unlawful things to be possible.
“If we Nigerians genuinely want democracy to endure, we should learn how to respect the laws of the land,” Kalu said.
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