(Revised, Detailed & Edited Version)
By Anthony S. Aladekomo
THERE have been occasional polls and predictions by some media outfits and organisations on the likely winner of the 2023 Nigerian presidential election scheduled for February 25, 2023. This particular prediction is a step further and is unique in many ways. Notably, the researcher and predictor herein belongs to no political party, is not funded by any person and makes the prediction based on verifiable historical facts, current figures and interactions with people from different parts of the country.
However, the predictions herein may be valid only if the electoral process is not compromised or manipulated by any presidential candidate, his supporters, his political party, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) or the government.
The four voting blocs featured in the research are identified based on the consistent voting patterns, particularly in presidential elections, around Nigeria since the country returned to democracy in 1999. Since then, whenever two or more of the voting blocs unite for a presidential candidate, he is sure to win. This was responsible for Dr. Goodluck Jonathan’s victory in 2011 and retired Major-General Muhammadu Buhari’s victory in 2015. One of the presidential candidates is enjoying such an alliance now between a voting bloc in Northern Nigeria and another voting bloc in Southern Nigeria.
The four voting blocs, identifiable in Nigeria since 1999, are the core North, Middle Belt, South-West and South-East/South-South voting blocs. The core North voting bloc is the first one and has 30 million voting population. It is mainly populated by Hausa-Fulani and Kanuri Muslims. It consists of the seven states in the North-West—Zamfara, Kebbi, Sokoto, Kano, Kaduna, Katsina and Jigawa–and four of the six states in the North-East, which are Bauchi, Gombe, Yobe and Borno. The Muslim majority in the core North has an ideology that the Nigerian national politics need not necessarily be separated from their Islamic religion despite the provisions of Section 10 of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution that prohibit the government, at any level, from adopting any religion as a state religion. They are usually eager to vote for only a presidential candidate who will use the machinery of government to promote their religion or interest.
Thus, all the 11 states in the core North arbitrarily expanded the sharia components in their legal systems between 1999 and 2001. The core North is the most populous voting bloc and home to the so-called “Buhari twelve million votes bank”. It is also home to the purportedly dreadful KKK states (Kano, Kaduna and Katsina). However, the huge voting population of the core North can also be demystified. In this regard, Lagos State in the South has more voting population (7,060,195) than each of them while Rivers State in the South now beats Katsina. It will also be pertinent to realise that about one million of the 5,921,370 voting population, that Kano State has been boasting of, is made up of mostly Igbo/Christian Southerners. One should note further that the Southern parts of Kebbi, Kaduna, Bauchi, Gombe, Yobe and Borno in this bloc are mainly Christin and claim to be Middle Belters and not Northerners. They are about 15% of the population of the core North voting bloc.
Generally speaking, the people in those parts of those states do not share the mentality and voting pattern of the mainstream core Northerners during presidential elections because of the marginalisation and bigotry that they have often been subjected to. For example, in 2019 and 2020 respectively, the relevant State Governors and their Muslim-majority state Houses of Assembly refused to confirm Justice Elizabeth Karatu of Kebbi State and Justice Beatrice Iliya of Gombe State as the Chief Judges of their respective states apparently because they were Christian and female!
The second voting bloc is the Middle Belt voting bloc. Its 19 million voting population is the third most populous voting bloc, ranking after the core North and the South-East/South-South voting bloc. This place is mainly populated by Northern ethnic minority Christians who usually vote for a presidential candidate that they believe will provide succour for them from the Northern bigots and jihadists like Boko Haram and ISWAP terrorists. The Middle Belt movement dates back to the 1950s when the ethnic minorities there demanded a region (state) distinct from the Northern Region so as to be free from the political, religious, ethnic and cultural domination of the Hausa-Fulani Muslim aristocracy.
Geographically, the Middle Belt is larger than the core North. It includes all six states—Benue, Plateau, Kogi, Nasarawa, Kwara and Niger–in the North Central geo-political zone, the whole of Taraba State and Adamawa State that are in the North-East, the Federal Capital Territory and the southern parts of Kebbi, Kaduna, Bauchi, Gombe, Yobe and Borno states, whose larger parts are in the core North (for which reason we shall, for our purpose here, count them with the core North).
Among the Middle Belt VIPs, who have at different times in the past identified with the Middle Belt cause, have been Chief Joseph Tarka, Chief Josiah Olawoyin, Chief Paul Unongo, General Zamani Lekwot (RTD.), Chief Solomon Lar, Lt.-General Theophilus Danjuma (rtd.), Air Commodore Dan Suleiman (RTD.), Col Ahmadu Ali (rtd.), Professor Jerry Gana, General Saliu Ibrahim (rtd.), Mr. John Dara and Col. Yohanna Madaki (rtd.).
The more recent ones are Air Commodore Jonah Jang (RTD.), Dr. Bitrus Pogu, Professor Turaki, Mr. Jonathan Asake, Dr. Obadiah Mailafia, Chief Samuel Ortom and Mr. Babachir Lawal. The adoption of sharia by 11 states in the core North, the kidnap of Chibok girls (about 90% Christian) in Southern Borno by Boko Haram in 2014, the menace of jihadist herdsmen, Leah Sharibu’s continuation in Boko Haram captivity because she refused to renounce Christianity and the stoning to death of Deborah Samuel Yakubu in May 2022 over alleged blasphemy, are recent issues that have made the Middle Belters see the need to maintain a separate identity for themselves.
However, Muslim indigenes in the Middle Belt are about 30%. Most of them are neither openly supportive of nor opposed to the Middle Belt cause. In fact, some of them profess core North’s ideology and have occasionally chided the guys behind the Middle Belt agitations.
The third voting bloc is the South-West voting bloc which has 18 million voters. This bloc is populated by Yoruba Christians and Muslims. The Yoruba people are about 50% Christian and 50% Muslim. The Yoruba are the dominant ethnic group in the South-West geo-political zone and are also indigenous to the larger part of Kwara State and a part of Kogi State, both of which are in the North Central, which is part of the Middle Belt. Though this bloc is home to Lagos, the state with the largest voting population in the country, it is the least populous voting bloc. Their voting pattern has hardly been influenced by their twin and differing Christian and Islamic religions. However, it is predictable that there will be a little shift in the coming presidential election, because of the Muslim/Muslim ticket of APC’s Bola Tinubu, who is one of them.
The fourth and final voting bloc is the South-East/South-South voting bloc. It has 26 million voters. The South-East geo-political zone is ethnically Igbo while its neighbouring South-South geo-political zone comprises coastal ethnic minorities. The voters here are over 98% Christian. It is the second most populous voting bloc, after the core North. The bloc has 11 states, five of them, which are in the South-East, are Abia, Anambra, Enugu, Imo and Ebonyi states. The remaining six, which are in the South-South are Edo, Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers, Cross River and Akwa Ibom. South-South’s Rivers State is the most populous of them. The states are united by the administrative unification of most of them in the defunct Eastern Region, their common Christian religion, and solidarity based on perceived common marginalisation in the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Accordingly, they have been having a uniform voting pattern since the country returned to democracy in 1999. Expectedly, they vote for a presidential candidate that they believe will heal their perceived marginalisation, which has worsened under the Muhammadu Buhari administration, resulting in violent separatist agitations in the South-East.
The voting pattern in each voting bloc identified here means that the candidate projected to win there will have about 60% or more of the number of votes there. The predictions herein factor in the fact that, like never before, this presidential election will be plagued by ethnicity and religious affiliation. The predictions reckon with only the three major contestants, that is 76-year-old Mr. Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party, who is a Fulani Northern Muslim seen by the core North as their candidate and flying a Muslim/Christian ticket; 61-year-old Mr. Peter Obi of the Labour Party, who is an Igbo Southern Christian of the South-East/South-South voting bloc flying a Christian/Muslim ticket; and 70-year-old Chief Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, a Yoruba Southern Muslim of the Yoruba voting bloc flying a Muslim/Muslim ticket.
Atiku, Tinubu and Obi are respectively former vice president, former governor of Lagos State and former governor of Anambra State. The summaries of their manifestos are not far-fetched. Atiku claims that he wants to unify the country and sell such important national assets as the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation. He even wants to sell federal universities—including those in Ibadan, Lagos and Nsukka, which are the only Nigerian public universities today featuring among globally ranked universities.
Tinubu has pontificated that “emi lo kan” (“it is my turn”) to become Nigeria’s President. In other words, he feels entitled to rule at this time because he was instrumental to the emergence of Major-General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd.) as President after he (Buhari) had “lule” or failed three times. He also claims he wants to replicate nationwide his purported spectacular performances when he was Lagos State governor between 1999 and 2007.
On his own, Obi promises to transform Nigeria “from a consumption economy to a production economy.” He also promises to apply kinetic and non-kinetic solutions to the insecurity in the country.
For any of the presidential candidates to be declared the winner by INEC in an election contested by more than two candidates so that there will be no need for a run-off election, he must have the highest number of the lawful votes cast, and 25% of the votes in at least 2/3 of the states of the federation and the FCT (that is, 24 of the 36 states plus the FCT). This is required under Section 134 (2) of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution. If there is no winner pursuant to those constitutional provisions, there shall, under Section 134 (3), be a run-off election in which the only two candidates to participate would be the candidate who scored the highest number of votes cast at the first election and one among the remaining candidates who has a majority of votes in the highest number of states, so however that where there are more than one candidate with a majority in the highest number of states, the candidate among them with the highest total votes cast at the election shall be the second candidate for the run-off election. Under Section 134 (4) of the Constitution, a presidential candidate shall be deemed elected in the run-off if he has a majority of the lawful votes cast at the election and has not less than 25% of the lawful votes cast in each of at least 2/3 of all the states and the FCT.
According to INEC, Nigeria’s current voters’ register has 93,469,008 names. The details of this number in Nigeria’s four voting blocs are as follows: core North–30 million; Middle Belt 19 million; South-West–18 million; and South-East/South-South–26 million. While Atiku of the PDP or Tinubu of the APC will manage to win in the core North, which has the largest number of voters, neither of them will have a landslide victory there. This is because the core North’s votes will be split between Atiku, Tinubu, Obi and Dr. Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), which is popular in Kano State, where he was a former governor. The Hausa-Fulani Muslims in the core North will massively vote for Atiku because they see him as one of their ethnic and religious fellows. Similarly, the majority Kanuri Muslims in Borno and Yobe states will massively vote for the Tinubu/Kashim Shetima ticket, because Tinubu’s running mate is their ethnic and religious fellow. Obi will have a small percentage of the votes of the core North because the Christian indigenes there are not comfortable with the Muslim/Muslim ticket of Tinubu and do not think it is just for another Fulani Northern Muslim to succeed Buhari. In fact, Obi will not find it difficult at all to garner 25% of the votes in states like Kaduna and possibly in Gombe, Kebbi and Borno.
The Middle Belt voting population is 19 million. Peter Obi of the LP will win there. Christians, who are in the majority in the Middle Belt, are eager to give bloc votes to Obi because they are not comfortable with the Muslim/Muslim ticket of Tinubu of the APC. In fact, they strongly believe that it is borne out of bigotry, marginalisation and a hidden agenda against them. They would also not vote for Atiku because as the majority of Southerners do, they see his ambition as selfish, unfair, unjust, unjustifiable and divisive because the 2023 transition should not be a transition from a Fulani Northern Muslim (which the incumbent President Buhari is) to another Fulani Northern Muslim, but a transition of the presidential power from the North to the South. Atiku will also face an electoral face-off from the Middle Belters for deleting his tweet that condemned the fatal stoning of Deborah Samuel Yakubu by Muslim fundamentalists in May 2022 after some Northern Muslims had threatened not to vote for him over it. His loss there will be Obi’s gain. Obi will also be favoured by the voters in the Christian-majority Middle Belt because of the naked marginalisation that they have been subjected to by the Buhari administration, whose policies have divided the country along ethno religious lines like never before in the country’s history. However, Atiku will win in Niger State while Tinubu will win in Kwara State.
Tinubu will garner a majority of the votes in the South-West voting bloc, which has 18 million voters. But, for certain reasons, this calls for little or no celebration in the camp of this APC presidential candidate. The first reason is that it is the least populous voting bloc. Secondly, the votes of Lagos, the state with the largest number of votes in the bloc, will be split between him and Peter Obi of the LP. About 30% of Lagos voters are Igbo, who are Obi’s kinsmen from the South-East and South-Southerners. These people have become so electorally relevant in Lagos State that they have been producing members of both the federal and state legislatures, that is, the House of Representatives and the State House of Assembly. It has to be noted also that like never before, the highly migrant Igbo people in places outside their homeland like Lagos and Kano did voter registration and are eager to cast their votes this time around because one of their own has the possibility of winning the presidential election. Tinubu’s Muslim/Muslim ticket will also work against him, to a little extent, among his Yoruba kinsmen, not only in Lagos but in the other states in the South-West. In a nutshell, Tinubu may only narrowly beat Obi in Lagos.
The South-East/South-South voting bloc has 26 million voters. It is the second most populous voting bloc. This is the bloc whose votes will most overwhelmingly go to a single presidential candidate, the reasons having been stated earlier. Apparently, their endorsed candidate is Peter Obi of the LP. However, Obi’s landslide victory in the bloc can only be guaranteed if the militant separatist Biafra agitators there do not scare voters away on election day.
From the foregoing analysis and research output, none of the three major candidates can win all four voting blocs or even three of them. Any candidate who succeeds in winning two voting blocs will win a majority of the votes all over the nation. As hinted above, no candidate currently has the muscle to have a landslide victory in the core North; Atiku or Tinubu may only marginally win there. Tinubu will win in the South-West while Obi will win in both the Middle Belt and South-South voting blocs and still do averagely well in Lagos.
Thus, one can safely predict that Peter Obi of the LP will have a majority of lawful votes at least on the first ballot in the presidential election. There may or may not be a need for a run-off. The real battle is between Obi and Tinubu. There is no hope for Atiku’s victory at all, because of the overwhelming sentiments for power shift to the South. On the contrary, Obi has the advantage of coming from the South (especially his South-East), which many believe, in all fairness, should be given a chance this time around. Unlike Atiku’s or Tinubu’s, Obi’s ticket is ethnically, religiously and regionally balanced. Atiku will not only fail to win in any state in the South-West and the South-East/South-South voting blocs (i.e. the 17 states in the South) but fail to get 25% of the votes in any of them. He will face a similar hurdle in the 19 states in the North, especially in the Middle Belt. In a nutshell, no miracle or magic can make Atiku win the 2023 presidential election. No results compromised or rigged in his favour by any cabal will be reasonable and acceptable.
On the other hand, the factors that will work in Obi’s favour include his younger age, good health, intellectual soundness, multiple educational attainments, and prudence while he was the governor of Anambra State. It is actually such virtues that have endeared him to the Nigerian youth, who have been spending their time, money, talents and energy promoting him, even when they know and chant “Obi no dey give shishi.” The slogan means that Obi presumably does not give the smallest amount of money to buy a presidential ticket or for vote-buying. The youth has the numerical strength to get him elected in the election. For the sake of clarity, the youth accounts for 75% of the current 93,469,008 Nigerian voters. A further breakdown is as follows: students: 27.8% (26,027,481); 18-34 year-old youth: 39.65% (37,060,399); and 35-49 year-old youth: 35.75% (33,413,591). They are the nerve centre of the Obi-dient movement. Obi similarly has the support of the Nigerian masses who have been traumatized for over two decades under the PDP and APC administrations.
It has to be noted also that an alliance for Obi between Middle Belt leaders and Southern leaders has already been sealed. Some of the historical evils of or ills in the PDP or the APC that may further work for Obi’s victory during the election are the PDP’s G-5 (five Governors)/Atiku feud, APC’s Tinubu/Buhari cold war, Buhari’s “lazy youths” gaffe, youth joblessness, Lekki #EndSARS killings, inflation and corruption. Obi symbolises a departure from the petrol scarcity, new Naira notes scarcity, hunger, bandits’ kidnappings, unaffordable prices of basic commodities like rice, lecturers’ strikes and withholding of university lecturers’ strike period salaries that have characterised the PDP/APC era since 1999.
Vote-buying cannot seriously help corrupt politicians, because many youths are not ready to mortgage their future for =₦=5,000 or =₦=10,000 this time around. What is more, if not truncated by the desperados, the deadline for the new Naira notes swap will be a big blow to those desperate politicians and looters banking on vote-buying to win the election. In a nutshell, there is a multi-dimensional pointer that Obi will be elected as Nigeria’s next President if a free and fair election is conducted by INEC. Tinubu however remains his major challenger. Like it has been for almost 20 years now in Lagos and the South-West, any politician who ignores or underrates him in the presidential election does so at his peril.
The security agencies should refuse to compromise; they must be loyal to Nigeria and the Nigerian Constitution and not to any politician. The US, UK and the European Union too should renew their warning to potential riggers that they will not go unpunished if they rig during the 2023 general elections.
•Anthony S. Aladekomo is a lecturer, lawyer and public affairs analyst.