BAYELSANS READY FOR ALL PROGRESSIVE CONGRESS

• In Nigeria, politicians are never stable, they are like the water that finds its own level. For the past 14 years Nigeria has been counted amongst nations under democratic rule. This is a plus for the country, as against military rule or military dictatorship which the global community frowns at. Thank God Nigeria is a fast growing democracy in her third Republic political experiment

General Abdulsalami Abubakar's name in history is already written in gold as the military Head of State who willfully handed over power to a civilian administration in 1999. General Abubakar set the pace for a promising democracy. From the 1999 elections the votes decided in favor of the Peoples Democratic Party {PDP} and Nigeria had always been in the hands of the PDP.

It was a point of interest to be with the ruling party, but to some honest leaders in the Niger Delta, The  political party one belongs to does not matter, provided the dividends of democracy are being realized. On this political journey of 14 years the people of Nigeria have been like a double headed serpent that insist on going different directions without minding that they belong to one body.

It has been so controversial for this nation called the giant of Africa to go on a political journey with a multiple party system that the Independent National Electoral Commission [INEC] failed to manage or co-ordinate, which gave a strong indication that Nigeria was moving into a turbulent sea of political uncertainties. Chief Olusegun Obasanjo who became the first Nigerian child to occupy the national throne as elected president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, ruled for 8 years, not because he was perfect but because as a nation which suffered from the hands of Military dictatorship, the citizens preferred democracy.

Nigerians though willing to co-operate with Obasanjo did not accept his attempt to a third term move, and forced him to go back to the political track of completing his second tenure and he left. The way was now open for a transition from democracy to democracy. Alhaji Shehu Musa Yar'Adua was favored as President,but did not even complete his first tenure leaving the seat to the Niger Delta born, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan as President of the Country. 

Dr. Jonathan succeeded Yar'Adua from his vintage position of Vice President to Acting President, to a substantive President and an elected President in 2011. The journey has not been easy with the PDP as a party. The PDP which called itself the largest party in Africa, with the symbol of an umbrella they use as a representation of a family under same roof. 

But that was not the true situation in the PDP, it was rather a house where so many unbelievable things continue to happen in the family, one cannot give a blow by blow account of PDP crisis across the country, but 'the last straw that broke the camel's back' was the story of the breakaway 7 PDP governors who went away from a National Convention  to form what they called a nPDP which has now progressed to a controversial merger with the All Progressive Party [APC] that appear to be threatening the soft landing of democracy in the country, as the latter has vowed to clean power from the hands of the 14 year old PDP leadership.

Stories about the quick spread of the APC were recorded on daily bases in the media: print, electronic and the new media, always coming out with more stories of defection. Those were stories from far, but most baffling is the attitude of most Bayelsans who said they are waiting for the APC to come, so that they will defect.

Bayelsa like most of the states is a blue blood PDP state which has no strong political party as apposition, which the state wants to maintain; especially now that they have their own Ijaw son, Dr. Jonathan as President. 

From the look of things, the PDP in the country more so, the Bayelsa State PDP should wake up and work harder, and also be vigilant for the Judases who smile with their leaders and betray them, are very much ready to betray their leaders again to get cheap political appointments.
Some of those yearning for defection are said to be meeting secretly in Port Harcourt and Yenagoa while sending out representation to work out their defection plans.