National President of the Afenifere Renewal Group, ARG, Olawale Oshun has blasted Nigerian politicians who are currently defecting from one political party to another.
He recently described them as greedy and indisciplined, and Nigerians have been reacting.
Speaking during an interview with Vanguard, Olawale revealed that Nigeria is obviously not ready for the demands of democracy.
According to him, running from one party to another is no guarantee that the party you are defecting to will provide the answers your political career is looking for, and it only proves that the majority of Nigerian politicians lack discipline.
He stated that politicians only defect because they are not prepared to subject themselves to what democracy requires of them.
“Like President Bola Tinubu said that it is not his duty to help cater to the peace of the opposition parties. What I see is that we Nigerians are really not ready for the demands of democracy. Why I say this is that those who are defecting, why are they defecting? So the first thing is not about accusing the sitting government or the majority in government at the moment.
I am sure those in government would be happy that this kind of discomfort is taking place among their opponents.
But the truth is that what kind of discipline have those in opposition subjected themselves to? The mere fact that you are running a party does not mean that such a party can provide answers to all questions the same day.
Due to their greed, because of their lack of discipline, those defecting are not ready to subject themselves to what democracy demands of them
That is the honest truth. The party really does not need that big margin to survive. It does not need it. They could still have been outside there playing their opposition roles, trying to juggle the government to review, look into its policies, so that at the end of the day, Nigeria is the best in terms of policy options, policy benedictions and all that. But everybody coming in, of course, it means that the policy options would diminish, and Nigerians would pay a price. Who do you blame? I blame those who cannot just withstand a little discomfort to help build the nation. Those who faced the military, they faced the military deliberately and conscientiously noting that it was better to have democracy,” he said.
He further noted that it is a shame to see how certain politicians cannot even endure being in opposition for a little while.
Olawale Oshun concluded by saying that it is clear that our political figures presently survive on only politics, hence their shameless desperation.
“You can only blame those who cannot even endure being in opposition for a while.
A friend of mine used to say, make sure you keep your second office, which is your job, your means of livelihood, and politics is not a means of livelihood.
When you go into it, you want to go into it to serve, to render service. But it’s obvious now that everybody lives on politics. It is becoming, for me, a disease that I see, and that is why you will find a former vice president defecting. He should have defected to his house, to say, no, I have had enough,” he added.
