Power has a peculiar smell in Nigerian politics. It draws men the way lanterns summon moths into flame. Every election cycle, a procession begins: senators, governors, lawmakers, and political drifters abandoning the opposition for the ruling party with the swagger of pilgrims who believe they have finally reached salvation. They cross carpets, wave brooms, chant new slogans, and kneel before cameras like repentant sinners entering a cathedral of power.
Then the primaries arrive.
And suddenly the cathedral becomes a slaughterhouse.
The recent humiliation of defectors who fled to the APC expecting automatic tickets deserves to be studied in political science classrooms as a masterclass in ruthless power management. The ruling party welcomed many of them with smiles sharp enough to cut rope, allowed them to dance at rallies, pose for photographs, insult their former parties, and declare loyalty with theatrical enthusiasm. Then, when the real business began, the party machinery quietly reached for the axe.
Tickets vanished.
Promises evaporated.
Political careers were left twitching on the roadside like sacrificed goats after a village festival.
Beautiful.
One must commend the APC for this cold efficiency. In a political climate where opportunists often expect rewards for cowardice, the party delivered a brutal reminder: power respects usefulness, not desperation. The defectors arrived imagining that proximity to the throne guaranteed inheritance. Instead, they discovered that ruling parties are not orphanages for frightened politicians. They are fortresses. And fortresses rarely trust men who abandoned their last camp at the scent of danger.
These politicians could have stayed in their parties and fought as opposition figures. They could have built grassroots credibility. They could have become symbols of resistance. History has often favored those who stood firm when defeat seemed certain. But many chose the easier road: decamp to the ruling party, kneel before power, and hope for political oxygen.
Now look at them.
Rejected by their new party.
Unable to return to the old one without humiliation.
Floating between camps like political refugees wearing expensive agbadas.
They resemble bats in an old fable: not accepted by birds because they have teeth, not accepted by mammals because they can fly. Creatures of convenience. Citizens of nowhere.
Politics has always had defectors. But what makes these cases particularly tragic is the speed of the betrayal. Some insulted their former allies publicly before the microphones had even cooled from their defection speeches. They burned bridges with the enthusiasm of conquerors, only to discover that the new kingdom had no room prepared for them.
There is a lesson here for every politician already polishing a defection speech ahead of the next election cycle.
A ruling party is not a charity organization.
Defection is not baptism.
Crossing over does not guarantee a ticket, relevance, protection, or respect.
Sometimes it merely guarantees a front-row seat to one's own political burial.
The APC, whether intentionally or accidentally, may have done Nigeria a favor. By disgracing high-profile defectors at the primaries, it has reminded the political class that loyalty purchased through fear is fragile currency. Perhaps future politicians will think twice before abandoning ideology, supporters, and party structures simply because power changed address.
Or perhaps they won't.
After all, moths rarely learn from the ashes of other moths.
-Abraham Ikongshul
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