The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has expressed pity for Rivers State Governor, Siminalayi Fubara, over his decision to defect to the All Progressives Congress (APC), saying his political troubles are largely self-inflicted.
PDP National Publicity Secretary, Ini Ememobong, said in a statement on Tuesday that the crisis in Rivers highlights a broken democracy, where powerful individuals dominate institutions and use federal machinery to pressure opponents.
Fubara, after meeting President Bola Tinubu in Abuja on Monday, announced in Port Harcourt on Tuesday that he and some appointees and supporters had left the PDP for the APC. He explained the move was to support President Tinubu and because he did not get the protection he expected from the PDP.
Reacting to Fubara’s defection, Ememobong expressed hope that the governor does not develop Stockholm Syndrome, where a victim becomes attached to their oppressor.
He said, “The National Working Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party has received the news of the formal defection of His Excellency, Sir Siminalayi Fubara, the Governor of Rivers State, from our Party to the ruling party. This news, as pitiful as it is, is an exemplar of the old legal maxim Volenti non fit injuria, meaning to one who is willing, no harm can be done.
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“Everyone who has followed the developments that culminated in this uneventful defection will recall that the Governor willingly travelled the path that took him to this destination. Having done so voluntarily, he cannot turn around and accuse our party, or any other person or group, of abandoning or not protecting him.
“Whilst a person who is at a crossroad of threats of existential proportion will most likely suffer from temporary amnesia caused by trauma, the Governor should have nothing less than praise for our party, civil society organisations, and all Nigerians who freely stood up in his defence since this crisis started until he capitulated. It is our prayer that the Governor should not suffer from Stockholm Syndrome, where a victim falls in love with his captor. In all, despite these, we pity the Governor and wish him well.
“Furthermore, the Rivers situation is a testament to the dysfunctional nature of our democracy, where individuals are bigger and stronger than institutions and can use the apparatus of the Federal Government to obfuscate political life out of their opponents and bring them to their knees.”
Ememobong warned that Nigeria’s democracy is under threat, pointing to the ruling party’s push toward a one-party system and shrinking of political space.
He added, “Democracy is terribly threatened by acts of this kind, and all well-meaning people should unify in condemning this progressive decline of democratic norms.
“Finally, we reiterate to Nigerians and the global community that with the unrelenting disposition of the ruling party towards the attainment of a one-party state, and the constriction of the political space, democracy is under severe attack in Nigeria. Everyone must rise together to oppose this ignoble trip toward electoral authoritarianism.”