PDP WILL BE UPSTAGED, BUT NOT IN 2015... Since General Buhari emerged the candidate of the opposition All Progressives Congress, APC, social media warriors have stepped up their game and I always laugh. In fact my very good brother, Ayo Ojeniyi, deserves kudos for the way he is going about it. I salute his industry. But a couple of months back, I wrote that Jonathan would win again and my APC friends nearly lynched me. Again I am writing today that this guy some of us love to deride and hate will win again in 2015. And this is my honest analysis and you do NOT have to agree with it. Do well to counter it. The voting pattern will again follow the pattern of 2011 (see attached pix). However, let me admit that Buhari will make better showing than 2011 but he will fall short again. And here is why. Buhari won ALL the 12 core Northern states while Jonathan won 23 states except Osun won by Ribadu. Now in 2015, the game changer, going by APC permutation, is the South-west. Good calculation. But before they clink the glasses, here is the possible scenarios. The ACN in the South-west did not work for their party in 2011, they will surely do in 2015. That is a fact. However, the party (either they will admit it or not) will NOT win Ondo and Ekiti States just as they did not do in 2011. That leaves Osun, Ogun, Oyo and Lagos. APC will win in Lagos and Osun but will SURELY lose either Ogun or Oyo. The reason is this: it is presently APC states but only a die-hard APC supporter will say the party enjoys more than 50% control of these states, especially Ogun. As a political reporter, I know that APC has lost so much ground in Ogun in the last one year. In Oyo, the party might even lose the governorship seat but again, my APC friends will not want to admit. That leaves Lagos and Osun. In Lagos in 2011, PDP had 1,281,688 while Buhari had 189,983 and Ribadu 427,203. Jonathan will not have that luck in Lagos this time around. But again, going by party structures and sentiments, he will still garner at least 35-40% of votes cast in the state. In all, he will have not less than 45-50% of total votes cast in the South-west. Dont believe me. Wait till then. Now lets go to the North-west. This is the result of the zone in 2011: Kano: Jonathan: 440,666. Buhari: 1,334,543 Katsina: Jonathan: 428,392. Buhari: 1,163,919 Kaduna: Jonathan: 1,190,179. Buhari: 1,334,244 Kebbi: Jonathan: 369,198. Buhari: 501,453 Sokoto: Jonathan: 309,057. Buhari: 540,769 Zamfara: 238,980. Buhari: 624,516. From the foregoing, PDP got the required 25% in ALL these states but Buhari won CONVINCINGLY in all of them. Go and write it down. It will be like that again in 2015. What caused Buharis loss, however, was that the kind of in-roads Jonathan made into the North-east and North-west, Buhari could not make them in the South-east and South-south in 2011. It is not likely to change much in 2015, no matter the noise Amaechi is making in Rivers, they are PDP zones and those of its clones, Labour Party and APGA. Now, lets go to the North-central. They are states that are dominantly Christians and this is where the religious and Hausa-Fulani versus indigenes cards will be played up. It will be unfair tactics, but they will be used to a devastating effect. Jonathans PDP will win these states handsomely. That leaves the North-east. Hmmmm. Many will not want to hear this but the current Boko Haram insurgency will be employed to deny APC votes they are expecting from this zone. No youth corper will want to go there even INEC staff will run. Analytically, this is where the hawks in PDP will make for the expected loss in South-west. Is it fair? No. But if APC holds the levers of power, they will do same. Politicians, Nigerian ones for that matter, are the same. At the end of the day, 2011 will play out again. Like I stated earlier, however, it wont be a comprehensive beating as it was in 2011. It will be quite close and it will be good for our democracy. In all this, however, I have been silent on whether performance of the incumbent will play any role. Too bad, it wont! In 2019, PDP will naturally take their presidential slot to the North (Hausa-Fulani) and APC will also leave it there. By that point, two critical political factors would have been eliminated: ETHNICITY and RELIGION. It will now be which party can work harder than the other to win the coveted prize. And if APC gets it acts right, it will defeat PDP hand down.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Dec 2014 05:44:10 +0000
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