BY IBRAHIM MOHAMMED, Abuja
On Saturday February 25, 2023 Nigerians of voting age who have permanent voters’ cards (PVCs) will file out in their numbers to elect the next president of Nigeria.
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To become president, a candidate must win majority of the votes cast and get a minimum of 25 percent of votes cast in 24 states out of the 36 states of the federation and Abuja the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
It is important to note that since 1979 presidential election which produced Shehu Shagari as president, no one has ever become president of Nigeria without winning the North Central geo-political zone. In the 1999 presidential election, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo won the South South, South East, North West and of course North Central, losing in his South West zone and doing very well in North East. Similarly in 2003 Obasanjo also won North Central, this time winning South West, South South, South East and a few states in the North West and North East and was reelected president.
In emerging President in 2007, Governor Umaru Musa Yar’Adua of Katsina State, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) also won the North Central as well as South East, South South and North West and parts of North East.
Goodluck Jonathan, the presidential candidate of PDP in the 2011 presidential election won South South, South East, South West and North Central and won the presidency even without winning the North West and winning only two states in North East.
In 2015, General Muhammadu Buhari who had been contesting for the presidency since 2003 finally won. It was his first time of winning the North Central and a geopolitical zone in the South, that was South West. He also won in his traditional base North East and North West. The same pattern was repeated in Buhari’s victorious reelection bid in 2019 presidential election.
Therefore as Nigerians go to the poll on Saturday to elect another president, which of the presidential candidates is projected to emerge victorious. The presidential frontrunners include; the presidential candidate of Labour Party (LP) Peter Obi; presidential candidate of governing All Progressives Congress (APC) Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu; the presidential candidate of PDP, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar; and the presidential candidate of the New Nigerian People’s Party (NNPP) Alhaji Rabiu Kwankwaso.
Investigations and recent opinion polls indicate that there is only one presidential candidate in this race that shows signs of emerging the president. That candidate is the presidential candidate of Labour Party (LP) Peter Obi. All the credible opinion polls including the ones by ANAP Foundation/NOI Poll, Nextier Poll, Bloomberg Poll, We2Gather Foundation Poll, Stears Poll among others showed that Peter Obi is going to win the North Central. Also, North Central leaders including the Middle Belt Forum and Northern Christian Elders Forum have endorsed Obi. The zone being predominantly Christians who are opposed to the Muslim-Muslim ticket of APC or the continuation of Fulani hegemony would not vote for Atiku, a Fulani like Buhari, especially as many of their communities have been destroyed by herdsmen, several others killed or kidnapped even as many are now living outside their communities as internally displaced persons (IDPs). Obi has been projected to win South East and South South.
Of all the candidates Obi is the only one that has three geopolitical zones under his firm grip; South East, South South and North Central. South South and South East gives Obi 11 states. He is expected to get at least 25 percent in all South West States, making it 17 states from the South. Obi is likely to win or get 25 percent in Christian dominated parts of the North including Benue, Plateau, Taraba, Adamawa, Gombe, Nasarawa, Kogi, FCT Abuja and Kaduna, making a total of 26 states which is more than enough constitutionally to be declared winner of the election and next president of Nigeria.
Obi is also doing very well in the South West where he is running neck to neck with Tinubu of the APC. In the February poll by ANAP/NOI, Tinubu defeated Obi in South West by only 1 percent of the total votes by respondents in the region. This is even as many are projecting Obi victory in Lagos as well as getting the required 25 percentage votes in all the South West states. Obi is also expected to win or get 25 percent in Christian dominated states like Adamawa, Taraba and Gombe and get over 30 percent of the votes in Kaduna State that has Muslim/Christian population ratio of 50/50.
Bola Ahmed Tinubu through the support of the North West governors in APC is expected to do well in North West, but Atiku Abubakar is pushing to take some states from him in this zone. Tinubu and APC are going to share North West with Atiku and Kwankwaso, while Peter Obi will take a chunk of the votes in the zone in Kaduna State. It is not possible for Tinubu to win North East and North West with Atiku and Kwankwaso in the race. He is performing poorly in South East and South South as indicated by the polls. These are indications that there is no pathway to Tinubu victory on Saturday.
Similarly, Atiku Abubakar is expected to do well in his zone, North East, but he will not be able to lockdown the North East or North West, and given the fact that he has been performing poorly on opinion polls in North Central, and has lost out in PDP traditional base in South East and South South to Peter Obi of Labour Party and stands no chance in South West, there is no pathway for Atiku Abubakar victory in the presidential election.
The presidential candidate of the NNPP, Musa Rabiu Kwankwaso is only expected to do well in Kano/Jigawa axis of the North West and could pull a surprise by winning Kano where he was governor for eight years, but that is where it ends. He cannot be able to meet the constitutional requirement to emerge president.