CAN INCUMBENCY FACTOR SAVE JONATHANS JOB? YEMI MAPADERUN In another five months, Nigerians will be going to the polls to elect officials that will serve them for the next four years at the national and state levels. The high points of the elections will be the election of a new President and state governors (with the exception of Edo, Ondo, Ekiti, and Osun states). In the next few weeks and months, there will be heightened concern, interest, and ambition depending on the level of involvement of participants and stakeholders in the election. For the Independent National Electoral Commission, the security forces, election monitors, and the international community, they will be concerned about the effective conduct of the election. The electorates will be interested in seeing their preferred candidates win elections while candidates for election and their political parties will pursue their ambitions to logical conclusions. Undoubtedly, the most coveted office in the coming elections is that of the president. However, even the most casual of observers knows that President Goodluck Jonathan will fly the Peoples Democratic Party’s ticket in that election. What is left is for the PDP National Convention to formally ratify Jonathan’s sole candidacy (as if a party can have multiple candidacy for an election) as well as the emergence of a candidate of the opposition All Progressives Congress. What is interesting about this election is that despite the fact that Jonathan’s potential opponent has not emerged, people are already predicting likely outcomes of the presidential election. To pro-Jonathan campaigners, come what may, he would be re-elected. On the other hand, those sympathetic to the opposition are of the view that the election is there to be won or lost by the APC. In other words, the odds favour the opposition party provided it seizes the opportunity of growing popular discontent with the Jonathan administration’s incompetence, perceived and real. I seem to agree with the latter for the following reasons. First, supporters of the President have repeatedly played the ethnic and religious cards. While these may sway some uninformed voters, they will alienate much more voters. There are many Christians particularly in the South-West who will not vote for Jonathan and no amount of hate messages by any pastor either on the pulpit or on social media can scam them into voting for him just because he is a “Christian”. By the same token, the branding of the APC by the President’s supporters as an “Islamic party” may end up giving the party bloc votes of Muslims in the country particularly in the presidential election. If that happens, then there is no way President Jonathan or the PDP can escape trouncing in the presidential election. Similarly, the derision the Hausa/Fulani have been subjected to by loyalists of the President will prove fatal for the President’s re-election bid. Most supporters of Jonathan have forgotten that he could not have become President without the substantial votes he got from the north in 2011. President Jonathan got the constitutionally required 25 per cent of votes cast in nine North-West/North-East states and in five the North-Central states in the 2011 presidential election. This was largely due to the “promise” of doing just one term of four years. Now that he is standing for re-election, every indicator points to the fact that Mr. President cannot repeat the feat of 2011 in those areas. Second, is the sheer arrogance of some supporters of the President from certain parts of the country in bragging that based on incumbency factor, he will be returned as president. The implication of such arrogance is that as the incumbent, the President will do everything, fair or foul, to retain his seat. This may not work as I see the chief umpire, Prof. Attahiru Jega, as being above board. He may therefore, not be amenable to facilitating this scenario. More importantly, it rubbishes the oft-repeated promise of free and fair election by the President and therefore makes him look untrustworthy. Third, the performance graph of successive PDP presidents since 1999 has been dropping. After Jonathan’s almost six years in the saddle, Obasanjo and Yar’Adua are being perceived by many as better performers. Obasanjo was for stabilising the polity, fighting corruption, changing Nigeria’s pariah status in the comity of nations, and earning debt forgiveness for Nigeria among others. On his part, Yar’Adua will be remembered for upholding the rule of law and initiating the reform of the electoral process. However, despite the generous use of the mass media to project the accomplishments of the Jonathan administration, not a few Nigerians perceive the government’s performance as lacking in lustre and focus. Looking back, the administration shot itself in the foot from day one by promising transformation without an agenda. In fact, possibly in a bid to moderate expectations, the President told Nigerians at the outset of his administration that he had no agenda even when he was an integral part of the 7-Point Agenda of the administration of the late President Yar’Adua as Vice President and later Acting President. It is therefore difficult for the President to lay claim to having delivered on his promise as there was none. What is being done now is to engage in claiming credit for any semblance of accomplishment whether temporal, opportunistic, or even fraudulent. Therefore, there is a natural tendency for people to want change. In this case, the PDP’s loss may be the APC’s gain. Fourth, the demography of voters does not favour a Jonathan re-election, particularly if the present geopolitical sentiments hold on election-day. A cursory look at those championing Jonathan’s re-election bid will reveal that they are largely from the South-East and South-South, in that order, with sprinklings of support from parts of the North-Central. His endorsement by the PDP governors notwithstanding. Conversely, the President’s ardent opponents are from the North-West, North-East, parts of the North-Central, and the South-West. A breakdown of the voter register indicates that of the over 70 million registered voters, over 54 million are located in the North-West, North-East, North-Central, and South-West put together. The North-West alone has over 25 per cent of the total registered voters. The South-West 18.5 per cent, the North-Central 15.7 per cent, and the North-East 15 per cent of the total registered voters. This translates to 74 per cent of the total registered voters. Conversely, the total number of registered voters in the entire South-East and South-South states is 17.9 million (less than 26 per cent) of the total number of registered voters nationwide. If there is no voter apathy in the core opposition strongholds, it will be nunc dimitis for Mr. President. The scenario is such that even in the unlikely event that the APC could not get at least 25 per cent of the votes in the 11 South-East and South-South states, it can still win the presidency. On the other hand, failure of the President to secure at least 25 per cent of the votes in at least 13 core APC states will badly dent his re-election aspiration. The above scenario is not lost on the PDP and the President’s team. That is why they have desperately taken over the media space in the past six months, drumming up support for the President through proxy organisations and paid brand communications companies bandying spurious signatures of support for the President’s re-election, all in breach of the electoral law which forbids campaigns until 90 days to election. At no time in election history in Nigeria has an incumbent deployed so much resources to media campaigns for re-election. Most times, an incumbent relies heavily on its performance as a more effective campaign message. Another tactic of the President’s campaigners arising from the scenario painted above is the message of religious hate being targeted at Christians in the South-West, the North-Central, and within minority communities in the North-East. This is with the aim of getting the required votes to achieve the minimum required 25 per cent of the votes in those areas. As favourable as these permutations are to the APC, its actually playing out will be heavily dependent on a number of variables. One, will the party (APC) present a formidable presidential ticket that will not be a hard sell? Two, is the party capable of managing its primaries in a way that there will be no inhouse cracks? Three, will all the candidates of the party for elective positions be people who can galvanise local support in their constituencies for the party’s presidential candidate? Four, does the party have a strategy to ensure massive turnout of voters in their identified strongholds? Five, will the party’s campaign be based on issues and how the Road map to a New Nigeria will be actualised? Six, will the party’s performing governors and other credible members play prominent roles in the party’s presidential campaign thereby giving credibility to the campaign promises? February 14, 2015 is decision day. Until then, let the permutations continue. Mapaderun wrote in from Institute of Strategic Management, Lagos https://facebook/groups/paff.789/ Paffcomm paffcomm TO WATCH NIGERIA TELEVISION LIVE AND VIDEOS AND NEWS ON THE HAPPENINGS IN NIGERIA AND AROUND THE WORLD GO TO. Paffcomm world news television https://facebook/pages/Paffcomm-world-news-television/788694787860922
Posted on: Sun, 30 Nov 2014 10:31:48 +0000
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