South West is the battle ground

Zik promptly declared himself [and his solid Igbo base] to be “the beautiful bride” that will hold the balance of power. The 2015 race will pitch President Goodluck Jonathan with his mainly Igbo/South South power base against General Muhammadu Buhari with his mainly Northern base. The beautiful bride this time is the South West voter. […]

Zik promptly declared himself [and his solid Igbo base] to be “the beautiful bride” that will hold the balance of power. The 2015 race will pitch President Goodluck Jonathan with his mainly Igbo/South South power base against General Muhammadu Buhari with his mainly Northern base. The beautiful bride this time is the South West voter. I do not want to say it is Asiwaju Bola Tinubu because of one important difference. In 1979 it was apparent that the Igbo would go wherever Zik went politically. In 2015 Tinubu has already cast his lot with Buhari. What is not very clear is if the South West voter would automatically follow suit.
Unlike in the USA where presidential candidates make calculations essentially based on Electoral College votes, things are somewhat simpler here. All that a candidate needs to win the presidential election is to get the highest number of votes and in addition obtain at least one quarter of the votes in two thirds of the states i.e. 24. There are 19 Northern states and 17 Southern states so one cannot win with the votes of one region. This was precisely what General Murtala Mohamed intended back in 1975 when he suggested to Chief FRA Williams’ Constitution Drafting Committee to consider adopting the American style presidential system.
Now, President Goodluck Jonathan and General Muhammadu Buhari were the same guys that contested the 2011 elections. Jonathan won that election with 22 million votes, majority votes in 24 states and a quarter in 31 states. His strength then was incumbency and also the national spread of his PDP. Going into 2015, Jonathan is weaker for three main reasons. There is a wider perception of his regime as a non-performer. PDP has somewhat shrunk in size with only 21 governors and a razor thin majority in the House when it had 27 governors and the collaboration of two more governors in 2011. Then also, the fragmented opposition parties of 2011 have coalesced into one strong party. The big question is, will these changes be enough to tip the scales?
General Buhari’s main strength in 2011 was his mass appeal in the North. This translated into 12 million votes, majorities in 12 states and one quarter of the votes in 16 states. He however had four severe electoral weaknesses in 2011. One, his CPC party had no elected official of any kind. Two, it was virtually non-existent in the South. Three, he failed to conclude an alliance with the Southern-based ACN and four, he had a very big perception problem in the South and Middle Belt of being a Northern Muslim parochialist. Of those four problems, the first three have been solved. APC has much more spread than CPC and is strong in the South. APC has 14 governors and hundreds of elected and appointed officials. What is not certain is if the fourth, decisive problem has been solved.
For a party strategist, the operation to get the highest number of votes is different from the operation to get one quarter in 24 states. Each must be approached differently. PDP strategists will depend heavily on incumbency. In Africa that is to say a lot because incumbents are rarely beaten in elections. The bad news is that some incumbents have been beaten, most recently in Malawi and Senegal. Incumbency as a political weapon has both legitimate and illegitimate elements. The legitimate ones are that the president has name recognition, media visibility, political reach, a certain aura, the power to bestow patronage and ability to withhold privileges. The illegitimate ones include unrestricted access to the public till; unrestricted control over the police and sometimes over the electoral commission as well. None is more important than the latter because if the ruling party has the power to tell the electoral commission what result to announce, as apparently was the case in 1983 through 2007, then it hardly needs any other asset.
Although some opposition politicians may not think so, PDP’s influence over INEC has greatly waned since 2010. When President Jonathan says the conduct of credible elections is one of his achievements in office, what he is saying is that he has no control over election results such as his predecessors had. International observers appear to think so, hence the pass mark they gave the 2011 elections despite strident opposition protests and the post election violence. It is noteworthy that for the first time in Nigeria’s history, the president’s political associates used harsh words to describe the electoral commission. Chiefs Edwin Clark and Raymond Dokpesi even alleged an INEC plot to cheat Jonathan through the creation of additional polling units. It is not known if they actually believed the claim. Now, even if PDP cannot get the whole INEC under its belt, it could try to get parts of it using money and appointment powers. Hundreds of thousands of people are going to work in the commission as ad hoc staff so the opportunities for infiltration are real.
PDP’s national spread will also be a factor in 2015. It has a strong presence in every state. It has hundreds of officials including 21 state governors, ministers and legislators. It also has the open or secret collaboration of heads of major government agencies including the police. All these count for something during elections. Though APC is the largest opposition party on Nigerian soil since 1999, it is noticeable that it has weak structures in seven states namely Enugu, Ebonyi, Abia, Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa and Delta. One lesson of 2011 is that a party that hopes to win the presidency requires structures in every state if not to win, at least to guard the ballot and the collation process.
PDP’s calculation is that it would win a quarter of the votes in every Southern state so it needs a quarter in at least 7 Northern states. Its obvious targets are the North Central and North Eastern states of Benue, Plateau, Nasarawa, Kogi, Kwara, Taraba and Adamawa. It would also set sights on far Northern states where it has governors such as Jigawa, Niger, Kebbi, Bauchi, Gombe, Kaduna and Katsina. PDP would even play for an outright win in some of these states as well as play for a quarter in such solidly APC states as Sokoto, Zamfara, Borno and Yobe with the help of money and APC defectors.
PDP’s bigger strategic worry, far as I can see, is how Jonathan can get more votes than Buhari. This is a problem because APC stands to win the populous North West and North East and do quite well in the North Central states. It would bank on its strong chapters in Rivers, Edo and Imo to make a dent in PDP’s regional armour. If on top of that APC wins the South West by a clear majority then it has pretty well won the election. As for spread, APC would aim to get the quarter in every Northern state. It then needs a quarter in only 5 Southern states. Its clear targets are the six Yoruba states, Edo, Rivers and Imo.
Jonathan’s political position in 2015 is weaker than it was in 2011 but that would not be a problem if PDP could replicate the basic strategy of 2011, which is a solid Southern vote plus a large minority Northern vote. The single key to this strategy is to continue to paint Buhari in the South and Middle Belt as a Northern parochialist. Conversely, APC’s most important strategic task is to destroy this perception. Buhari’s choice of a Yoruba Christian running mate could soften feelings but few people vote because of the running mate. APC must either convince Yoruba voters to vote against the perception of Jonathan’s non-performance, or to convince them that the region will be a major player in Federal power if Buhari wins. In short, whoever wins the South West wins the 2015 election.