Brookings and the fallacies of a prediction (II)

Contrary to Adibe’s claim that the “PDP also holds comfortable majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate”; The Punch edition of 15th January, 2015 carried this headline: APC regains House majority as PDP loses 8 Reps.  At the moment, the PDP has 162 members while the APC has 179. Still on numbers; […]

Contrary to Adibe’s claim that the “PDP also holds comfortable majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate”; The Punch edition of 15th January, 2015 carried this headline: APC regains House majority as PDP loses 8 Reps.  At the moment, the PDP has 162 members while the APC has 179.
Still on numbers; whereas Adibe stated that APC was “banking on a combination of votes from the populous northwest (18 million votes), northeast (11 million votes), and southwest (13.5 million votes) for victory, he kept quiet about the voting strength of Jonathan’s strongholds of southeast and south-south. It is a foregone conclusion that the entire North West is in Buhari’s column. Of course, everyone knows the voting strength of Jonathan’s strongholds is much less than the northwest and southwest where Buhari enjoys massive support. Why didn’t Adibe supply the numbers that Jonathan expects from his support base?
I’m beginning to have a second thought about whether southwest is really the battleground for this election. On the contrary, the battleground may well be the so called middle belt because of the increasing likelihood that people here may vote along religious lines. Kwara, Kogi, Niger and Nasarawa states have majority Muslim population, while Benue and Plateau are dominated by Christians. Jonathan doesn’t have the magic wand to win Kwara, Nassarawa and Niger States in the North Central. Or is a battleground defined by which party is in power in those states? In the meantime, the southwest that’s bandied about as battleground region actually has a history of voting en bloc. Nor do I see Lagos, Ogun, Osun and Oyo voting for Jonathan. That leaves Ekiti and Ondo; even here, the Ekiti House of Assembly is in the hands of APC and in Ondo, the situation is still fluid as many old PDP members have kicked against the entry of the State Governor, Olusegun Mimiko, culminating in a serious desertion of the party by some influential people. So what makes the southwest a battleground? Is there any single politician or a combination of politicians that can match the large following of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu who’s determined to see the back of Jonathan in this election?
Unfolding events indicate that the PDP, given the choice, doesn’t want elections this February, let alone win them. Like he was given the right of first refusal by the PDP, Jonathan simply wants to have another term, by whatever means. Jonathan wants inauguration, not election! That explains why the ruling party attempted to steal the APC acronym.  They first deceived themselves that the legacy parties wouldn’t merge successfully and when that happened, they labelled APC as an Islamic party that wants to Islamise Nigeria. Afterwards, they said the APC would dissolve at the point of selecting a presidential ticket. So they hoped against hope. They wanted Atiku but when they got Buhari and then Osinbajo, the PDP became flustered. They began a malicious campaign against Buhari; alleging that he’s a religious bigot, he’s an ethnic champion, he’s a heartless dictator, he’s too old, he has cancer and he has no certificate, until a close Jonathan adviser finally advised that the election be postponed. They’re scared stiff of Major General Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s next President! The PDP is frightened and beginning to be haunted by their misdeeds. Winston Churchill won the World War II for Great Britain and still lost election
The call for the postponement of the 2015 general elections made in London, United Kingdom, by Col Muhammadu Sambo Dasuki (rtd), Jonathan’s National Security Adviser, stunned Nigerians. Firstly, Col Sambo isn’t the chairman or supervisor of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and so people were surprised at where he got the locus to make such a call. Secondly, people didn’t understand why the security adviser would leave Nigeria and go and make that call in far away London. How can someone leave his compatriots behind and go to a clime that’s not his constituency and ask for postponement of a scheduled election? Why didn’t this adviser make his unhelpful call in Damaturu or Maiduguri where he has unfinished security job?  The company in which the call was made was also alarming. The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), the Ijaw Youth Congress (IYC) and one middle belt group were said to be at the forum and fully endorsed Col Sambo’s recommendation. Suffice it to say that Sambo’s claim that he had made same suggestion to INEC was promptly denied by its chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega. Obviously, it was a serious miscalculation for a security adviser to ignore his fellow citizens and travel to Europe and ask that elections be shifted. It’s disdainful of Nigerians and the only inference is that Col Sambo wants his principal to continue as president while he remains the security adviser. More importantly, this cheap call has exposed the lie that the Peoples Democratic Party is confident of victory in the elections this February.
Even last month, the PDP National Secretary, Professor Wale Oladipo told the world that they would get Atiku Abubakar, Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso and others who left PDP to return. Is this the attitude of a party confident of victory? These bigwigs quit the PDP because it couldn’t address their grievances; it’s ridiculous for the party to now ask them back. It’s also undemocratic for anyone to say that the “north ruled the country for about 35 of them (years) and should therefore be patient for that ‘historical injustice’ to be redressed first.” The Brookings Institution’s 2015 election prediction is a tissue of plain lies; PDP will be shellacked this February. Change is upon us!