Take it or leave it, President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB) has victory assured come Saturday. This assertion is based on obvious facts out there for any discerning observer of our polity.
Any careful observation of our electoral politics since independence will undoubtedly reveal a clear voting pattern largely informed and driven by ethno-religious considerations. This pattern has remained consistent and will continue for some time. It is not about to change in 2019. The only exception in recent memory is the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential election where the whole country united behind a Muslim-Muslim ticket in her determination to end and free herself from the political debacle of the convoluted, dubious and interminable transition to civil rule programme of the Babangida administration.
The annulment of that election exacerbated our ethno-religious fault lines. This has continued to influence our voting behavior in even greater measure. To mitigate the negative consequences of these centrifugal tendencies on our polity and forge national cohesion, our constitution requires a candidate for the office of the president to, in addition to having the highest number of votes cast, to also, receive 25 per cent of the votes in at least 2/3 of the states of the federation. The whole essence of this provision is to avert a situation where a candidate can emerge as president without the votes from other parts of the country. This is to ensure that the electoral mandate given to the candidate has national spread.
For a candidate to win, that candidate must go into political alliances with other sections of the country in political horse-trading to get their support and votes in the election. The votes from the other parts of the country are expected to compliment the votes coming from the candidate’s geo-political base or stronghold to give the candidate a competitive edge in the election. This is the fundamental assumption underpinning our national election strategies and this will certainly play out in this particular election. The formula for engineering electoral victory in our democracy is therefore, by securing your base as a candidate and secondly by having a political alliance with other parts of the country that have the electoral capacity (votes) to complement the votes from your own political base.
It is against this background that I examine the two main candidates, President Muhammadu Buhari and Atiku Abubakar in terms of(a) political base and (b) political alliance with other parts of the country. PMB comes from the Northwest with a voter population of about 20 million, the highest in the North and the highest in the whole country. Atiku, on the other hand, comes from the Northeast with about 11 million voter population. PMB’s running mate, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo (PYO) is from the Southwest with a voter population of about 16 million, the highest in the southern part of the country and second in the whole country. Atiku’s running mate, Peter Obi is from the Southeast that has about 10 million voterpopulation.
What this means is that, while PMB/PYO ticket is coming to this electoral contest with the backing of about 36 million prospective voters, Atiku/Obi ticket is coming to face them backed by only 21 million prospective voters, leaving them with a shortfall of about 15 million voters already. This chasm should be a major concern to election strategists working for Atiku as they do their projections and other permutations to ensure victory for their candidate.
Looking at Atiku’s strength in the Northeast today, one should ask the question whether he has what it takes to consolidate the votes in his geopolitical zone and make it a voting block going into the election.I honestly have my doubts and this is why.APC has four sitting governors out of the sixstates that make up the zone, while PDP has only two.The immediate implication of this fact is that four incumbent governors will be working assiduously to mobilize voters at the grassroots using the resources and structures of incumbency to ensure victory for PMB, knowing fully well that victory in that first round of election can trigger a bandwagon effect that will steamroll them to gubernatorial election victory in March.
In Adamawa, (Atiku’s home state), he has to contend with a sitting governor running for re-election on the APC ticket who would stop at nothing to ensure victory for PMB and APC to pave way for his own victory at the gubernatorial polls in March. Incumbent governors, seeking re-election are normally inclined to invest enormous amount of resources in any exercise or process that has the potential of enhancing their chances of re-election. The presidential poll is one of such exercises.Adamawa is also the home state of the wife of the president, Mrs. Aisha Buhari who will be a major asset in mobilizing voters, especially the women folk for PMB in the state.
In Bauchi State, the same scenario will play out where an incumbent APC governor is seeking re-election and will leave no stone unturned in his effort to ensure victory for PMB as a test run for his own gubernatorial poll. APC is very dominant in Bauchi State, as was clearly shown in the recently conducted senatorial bye-election in which the party easily defeated the PDP. Taraba is a PDP state but PMB got about 250,000 votes (more than 25% of the votes) to come second to Jonathan who polled about 300,000 votes in 2015 election. Gombe is another PDP state in the zone, but PMB did very well in the state in 2015 polls when he defeated the PDP candidate by polling more than 250,000 votes while his PDP opponent got about 90,000 votes.Judging by the overall performance of PMB in the zone in 2015 election, where he got nearly 2.5 million votes to defeat Jonathan that polled close to 600,000 votes, it is clear that PMB has strong political base in the Northeast.
One may disagree with this take on the ground that PMB ran against Jonathan, a Christian from the South but with Atiku it is a different ball game; as both are from the same faith, ethnic stock and region. I will readily concede that the argument is not without some merit, especially in view of the fact that Atiku is from the zone and will certainly do far better than Jonathan against PMB.The problem is that the difference between Jonathan and Atiku in their performance against PMB will be negligible and insignificant to affect the electoral fortunes of PMB negatively. In other words, whether it is Atiku or Jonathan, PMB will still prevail electorally. Why? The reason is that Atiku is running against a unique political personality who has captured the hearts and minds of the teeming population of the rural poor, the underprivileged class of the homeless and the destitute, the talakawa, the peasant majority and those that Franz Fanon will call the “Wretched of the Earth” who reside mostly in the northern part of the country.
We must not lose sight of the fact also that the Northeast owes PMB a huge debt of gratitude for greatly reversing the fortunes of the Boko Haram insurgency in the zone. Despite their sporadic attacks in recent times, it is an incontrovertible fact that the insurgency has been drastically and substantially contained and degraded to pave way for the return of normal life with peace and security.
With Atiku’s zone virtually under the vice grip of PMB, the Northwest which is PMB’s base is totally a forbidden territory for Atiku and PDP. PMB has erected (with his overwhelming grassroots mass followership) what in American political lexicon iscalled electoral firewalls around the Northwest Zone.The firewalls make the zone an impregnable fortress for any opposition. PMB has such a dominant presence in the political space, which is so pervasive to the point that anything to the contrary is fiercely resisted by his army of rabid supporters who are militantly dedicated to his victory at the polls. The only hope of making a dent (no matter how small), on the PMB firewalls in the Northwest was quickly dashed when Senator RabiuKwankwaso, the former Governor of Kano State lost the PDP presidential primaries in Port Harcourt. His Kwankwasiya grass root movement was the only political organization considered capable of posing any credible challenge to the PMB political phenomenon in the Northwest.
- Agbachi is a Public Affairs analyst based in Abuja.
Leave a Reply