International medical consultant-turned politician, Dr. Jay Samuels, is the founding chairman of Alliance for better Nigeria, a political party deregistered by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), some years ago. In this interview, with BIYI ADEGOROYE, he examines the Nigerian political ecosystem ahead of the 2027 elections

How do you see the current spate of defections ahead of the 2027 general elections?

I think for me, if you understand the political environment, politicians will always look for the platform or vehicle where they feel their interest can be better served. So, even without inducement because of the lack of foundational ideologies in our political system, that is why it is easy for them to decamp from one party to another, believing the other party will serve them better.

So, in that context I’m not really surprised to see all that happening. But what in peculiar is the perceived role of the ruling party that is alleged that have been playing (in the defections), either overtly or covertly, because what seems to be happening is that the party wants to make the forth-coming elections a fait accompli without even having to do any serious campaign.

It wants to weaken all political party opponents so that they will be the only party standing and which does not augur well for our democracy. I, for one, believe in the mantra that the electorates determine who governs them not the politicians or the party. So, for me I would expect that if you are giving the best in your service to your fatherland, why don’t you let your work speak for you rather than trying to weaken the opponents. Even though it’s part of the page, going all out to weaken the opponents is not good for our democracy.

Are you in effect saying that the crisis in the Labour Party, PDP was actually sponsored by the ruling party?

I don’t have my facts but all the feelers that we are seeing from the political players show that. For instance, Peter Obi’s defection which was delayed for so long and like I said to some people I won’t be surprised and it has already started happening in the coming days, if we see splitting or major fighting in the ADC because of what has happened. What has happened with Obi’s declaration, it appears the ADC is kicking up steam again and tells us that something is happening underground that is fueling all of these defections just to waken the political parties either by carrot or snake approach.

Some other governors are said to be looking in that direction. You think this goes in the direction of what you are talking about defecting to ADC?

I’m just hearing from you for the first time but I won’t be surprised if those governors’ defect from the PDP because as it is right now, PDP has no chance of becoming a participant right now or playing any role in the forthcoming elections. By the release of the INEC timetable any serious opposition that knows its onions would start looking for the platform for which to participate.

So, if that news is true, I won’t be surprised that they are defecting from the PDP and won’t be surprised if some of them go to the APC but going to the ADC will surely be a boost and then we’re going to see some real fireworks coming up in the following days. I wouldn’t know what is motivating the Kano State governor for wanting to defect even though it might want to seem that his principal is close to it, so that has put some spanner in the works and has delayed his defection and see if it would come to that.

But I don’t know the type of stick that he would use for him to want to defect but, the situation in Kano is what one should watch because you will have a situation where Kwankwaso remains or going to join the ADC like he’s negotiating for and the Governor going to the APC. So, this looks very interesting and I don’t know what the outcome will be or whether he will change, because you can hear from the former National Chairman of the APC that he is not welcoming the governor to APC.

Let’s look at the role of INEC. INEC did not list the PDP candidates in the Ekiti Election, and the Labour Party in the Abuja Municipal Election. How do you see these?

One might want to blame INEC but as an independent umpire, it would like to be seen as independent or objective. There are navy cases like that where you have multiple factions within a political party, INEC can hide under those reasons to do what it does not want to do or wants to do. For instance, when you have a government that may have an interest in who does what or doesn’t, if they have a control over a body like INEC, it is just for INEC to look for a reason to want to support the position of the government.

I’m not alleging that anybody is having control but, with what we are seeing with the PDP, INEC is justified to exclude them from participating in any of those elections that have been mentioned because it’s been seen on the side of caution. By the time those issues are resolved either way, INEC would act accordingly but right now, it is safe for INEC to exclude the PDP candidates from those elections.

Generally speaking, how do you see the issue of godfatherism in Nigerian politics? Fubara is still at logger heads with Wike just as Kwankwaso is at loggerheads with Yusuf in Kano. Does it really pay to sponsor somebody or what do you make of it?

Godfatherism is one of the major problems in Nigeria’s political system and I say that because if you look back to 1999 during the beginning of the fourth Republic, the process that led to 1999, a lot of people did not believe that something good will come out of it.

So, a lot of people did not participate but, we also have where some good people also came up and participated. Let’s say in that year we had a best 11 that came up to participate but, what has happened between 1999 and now is because each successive government like the governors that served in 1999, ensured that they picked not the best but the person they can easily control to succeed them.

And also those ones will look for the weakest person they can control and that has been the bane of not having the best people at the level of the state government and of course commissioners and everything. The best have not been allowed to put their best foot forward because of the election system, godfatherism.

One thing I have come to know about this godfatherism is that no matter how weak or low risk you might perceive somebody and you now pick him to be your successor, because of the inherent power of that office, it only takes one day in office for that person to realise the power that that has, and begin to see they can’t be subservient to you. It behooves the godfather to know their boundaries so that they don’t treat an executive governor as a house boy.

I think that is one of the major issues that we have in this godfatherism because of the overbearing nature of the so-called godfathers. Even as a governor, you want to do something but you are held back because of your godfather, because of what he knew, whether his remittances or your naming of how many commissioners or whatever.

So, those types of things are bound to happen. Look at any state, unless of course, we can talk about Kogi State where it is happening, almost at a 100 per cent because that’s the only place we can say we don’t know what is involved but godfatherism is the major issue in our polity and it is not for it.

What was your experience in politics? What exposure did you have?

I didn’t contest any election. What I was trying to do was to give a political party platform where you don’t need a godfather to sponsor you to be able to aspire to any position you want- whether councillors, chairmanship, Senate or House of Reps. So that was my mission to build a platform where we are not building to godfatherism. But operating in the Nigerian environment, you can’t be excluded from what is happening within our larger ecosystem.

So, my experience was that a lot of external influences were trying to infiltrate our party to make sure that our objectives and ideals were not achievable or should I say as we put it in popular parlance that they hijacked the party from us. So, that experience is something that may be a story for another day. That’s why I want to look at the PDP for not being able to build the platform and that was why our party was deregistered because some people didn’t want that party to survive.

How do you see Local Governments managing their funds these days especially with so so-called local governments autonomy?

Well, having the local government autonomy is the way to go but, I don’t know if that is being fully implemented, because we still know the governors are still fighting even though they are to be getting their allocations directly. But, it is practically not being done that way but, ultimately it is the way to go.

Leaving the Local Government authorities to be reckless with the funds but put systems and structures in place for oversight functions so that those funds can be accounted for and bring transparency in place, monitoring and evaluation and accountability to the electorate. It is a good step in the right direction but we want to see it fully operational.