#NigeriaDecides2023: How presidential election will be won and lost

Nigerians will vote on Saturday to elect their fifth president of the Fourth Republic. A total of 18 candidates are officially running in the presidential election but only four of them are considered to be in contention. The four are Bola Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Atiku Abubakar of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) and Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP).

This is the first election in the Fourth Republic in which more than three candidates are strong contenders in a presidential election. The four front runners are from different geo-political zones, two each from the northern and southern regions. Each of them also appears to have strong support in their home zones, although Mr Tinubu and Atiku have a significant added advantage. Their parties have run the federal government for eight and 16 years respectively and have established structures they can call on in every part of the country. Where they are not dominant, they are at least present.

In each of the previous six presidential election since 1999, the winning candidates took at least four of the six zones. This means that no candidate has been elected without winning at least one of the three zones in either the northern or southern half of the country. In 2015 and 2019,  President Muhammadu Buhari won the three northern zones and one in the South – the South-west.

However, having more than two strong contenders this year means one can sneak into victory by securing the highest number of votes from less than four zones, as long as they also meet the requirement of at least a quarter of the votes in at least two-thirds of the states of the federation and the FCT.

Saturday’s presidentialelection will be won and lost in the states. So, let’s take a tour of the states through their zones, to see how the candidates stand with voters across the country. We will be looking at how the states voted in the most recent general election in 2019, and the performances of the top four candidates on the field since electioneering began at the end of
September.

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North-west

This is Nigeria’s largest zone by virtue of it having the most states (seven) and some of the most populous states too, such as Kano, Katsina, Kaduna and Jigawa. The zone was the bedrock for Mr Buhari’s eventually successful relentless pursuit of the presidency, from his first failed attempt in 2003 to the farewell one in 2019 when he was elected to a second consecutive term.

Three of the states in this zone had given Olusegun Obasanjo the majority of their votes in the 1999 presidential election. The states – Kaduna, Katsina and Jigawa – also elected PDP candidates as their governors. The four other states – Kano, Sokoto, Zamfara and Kebbi – had gone to the then All Peoples Party, which had Olu Falae as its joint presidential candidate with the Alliance for Democracy party. However, Kano elected a PDP governor at the time.

In 2019, Mr Buhari of the APC took all seven states in his two-horse race against Atiku of the PDP, polling 5,995,751 votes to Atiku’s 2, 280,465 votes. President Buhari got his four highest numbers of votes per state in Kano (1,464,768), Katsina (1,232,133), Kaduna (993,445) and Jigawa (784,738). Six of the states also elected APC governors, five of whom like President Buhari are concluding their second terms this year.

However, in spite of Mr Buhari’s thumping victory here in 2019, the North-west is considered a battleground in this election. First, because Mr Kwankwaso of the NPPP (Kano) and the LP presidential running mate, Yusuf Datti-Ahmed (Kaduna) are from the zone. Mr Kwankwaso has a large following in Kano, Katsina and Jigawa. But the real battle here is between the candidates of the two big parties.

Atiku recorded his highest votes per zone in 2019 in the North-west (2,280,465). Kaduna also gave him the highest votes of any state (649,612 votes). And one of the points in his unsuccessful petition against his defeat by President Buhari was that he was cheated in the president’s home state of Katsina where Atiku recorded 308,051 votes. The PDP is investing time and resources in the state and Atiku’s aides believe he can flip it this year. The PDP is also hoping to prevail in Jigawa and Kebbi and to hang on to Sokoto, where it is under a heavy APC assault led by a former governor of the state, Aliyu Wamakko.

The PDP is divided in Kano and is not expected to do well there. In this state with the second highest number of voters after Lagos, the battle is between the APC and NNPP candidates.

In Kaduna, which it held until 2015, the PDP faces a different threat to its share of the votes. The party’s stronghold is the southern part of the state which is home to mostly Christians and minority ethnic groups. But this is also where the LP is hoping to lay its hands on votes in the state.
The LP has picked its governorship candidate from the area and if it gets significant poll returns from the state, it will be at the expense of the PDP and may just widen the margin of APC victory in the state.

All said, we project Mr Tinubu of the APC to come to take more than half of the votes in this zone. The rest will be shared largely between Atiku and Kwankwaso.

North-central and presidential election history

There are six states and the FCT in this zone. In the 2019 poll, President Buhari got the plurality of its votes, polling 2,465,599 to Atiku’s 2,023,769. There was only a difference of 441,830 votes between them, but the president won in four of the states while the PDP won in the other two and the FCT. However, the APC has five of the six governors. The races were close in all but two of the states in 2019 – Niger and Kwara, which were taken by President Buhari. In Benue and Nasarawa, there was only a few thousand votes difference between the two candidates.

We project the races in all six states to remain largely between the APC and PDP candidates Niger and Kwara states appear safe in the APC column, and the party looks capable of retaining control of Kogi and Nasarawa. In the 2019 presidential race, President Buhari (289,903) defeated Atiku (283,847) by just over 6,000 votes in Nasarawa. However, the APC’s hold on Plateau is tenuous. It did not win the presidential election there in 2019, even though Governor Simeon Lalong was able to hold back the opposition to secure re-election two weeks later.

This election is set to be very interesting in Benue. The ruling PDP is divided with Governor Ortom forsworn not to support Atiku, while the PDP National Chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, and other leaders of the party in the state, like former Governor Gabriel Suswan and former Senate President David Mark are all pushing for the presidential candidate. President Buhari lost the state by less than 9,000 votes in 2019. But the APC has been galvanised by the emergence of a clergyman, Father Alia, as its governorship candidate and it is a toss yet who between the APC and PDP will eventually prevail in all the elections.

Some polls have projected Mr Obi to do well in this zone. But that remains difficult to see from history and on the ground. That projection was obviously based on the large Christian population in the zone. With Christian leaders and sectional groups such as the Middle Belt Forum rooting for him, many expect the LP candidate to poll significant numbers here. But the battle here, accentuated since the 2015 poll, had always involved Christian communities pitching their tents with the PDP, against tendencies now represented by the APC.

Only Benue and Plateau have a Christian majority in the zone and they have always elected Christians as their governors. But Christians constitute only a large minority in Kogi and Nasarawa, which partly explains why the two states have also never elected Christian governors. However, there are more nuances to political competition in this zone. What is clear though is that, as we said about Kaduna, if Mr Obi does well in this zone, it will
be in states and areas where the PDP had been dominant. Our projection is for Mr Tinubu to take at least four of the six states in Saturday’s presidential election.

North-east

This zone is home to Atiku and the presidential running mate of the APC, Kashim Shettima. In 2019, President Buhari handed Atiku his second-heaviest zonal defeat on the way to picking four of the six states. The president polled 3,288,785 votes overall to Atiku’s 1,255,357 votes. The PDP candidate won only in his home state of Adamawa (410,266 to 378,078) and Taraba (374,743 to 324,908). In Borno, Bauchi, Gombe and Yobe, his returns were very poor, compared with those of President Buhari, even though Bauchi elected a PDP governor in the same electoral cycle.

All eyes will be on Bauchi where Governor Bala Mohammed is seeking reelection. The governor appears to be popular and with Mr Buhari not the APC candidate this time, Mr Tinubu will be concerned whether the people will heed Mr Buhari’s plea when he accompanied Mr Tinubu’s there for his campaign rally that they should give their votes to the APC. Also, the governor appears to be lukewarm to Atiku’s bid, both men being opponents in the PDP primaries. Mr Mohammed had publicly asked the president for guidance on who the state should vote for president.

We project Atiku to win in Adamawa and Taraba, although Mr Obi will be looking for a bite of the cherry in the latter state, following his endorsement by former Nigerian Army chief, Theophilus Danjuma, and Christian leaders in the zone.

Borno and Yobe are the only two states in the zone that has never elected a PDP governor. The two states gave President Buhari over 1.5 million votes in 2019, compared to just over 120,000 votes for Atiku. With Mr Tinubu’s
running mate, Mr Shettima, being a former governor of Borno, we expect more of the same voting pattern here.

We project the APC to have the plurality of votes in this zone but with Atiku also improving on his tally from 2019.

*South-west*

The fact tends to be glossed over by observers that this zone has, since 2003, been a battleground between the APC and PDP tendencies. In the transition elections to this Republic in 1999, the Alliance for Democracy’s
flag bearer, Mr Falae, beat Mr Obasanjo of the PDP in the six states, all of which also elected their governors from the same party. But four years later, an electoral tsunami overtook the zone when President Obasanjo ran
for reelection and won in all the states. His main opponent in that poll was Mr Buhari. The PDP also took five of the six states in the state elections. Since then, the APC tendency has battled back to reclaim all the
states at different points. But it has rarely again held all six at the same time. Oyo and Osun now have PDP governors.

In the 2019 presidential election, President Buhari defeated Atiku in the zone by 259,780 votes, the lowest margin of victory by either of the candidates in a zone in the election. This was in spite of the fact that Vice President Yemi Osinbajo is from this zone.

Atiku also won in Ondo (275,901 to 241,769) and Oyo (366,690 to 365,229), while losing narrowly in Osun (337,377 to 347,634), The PDP last year won the governorship poll in Osun. Although the result is still being contested in court, it underscores the main opposition party’s strength in the zone.

All the foregoing shows that the APC and PDP have always run neck and neck in the only southern zone where the PDP is not the dominant party.

Mr Tinubu being from the zone brings the expectation that he will get better returns than Mr Buhari got here in 2015 and 2019. In 1979, 1983, 1993 and 2003 when a Yoruba was the candidate of a major ticket, the zone gave that candidate an overwhelming majority of its votes. However, the optics from the current campaigns and the pre-election political violence going on in Osun indicate that the contest in each of the states will again be stiff between the two old adversaries.

In Lagos, Mr Obi appears set to be the main opponent to Mr Tinubu, due largely to the large population of the Igbos in the former federal capital. The PDP had drawn its strength in the state from the overwhelming support of the same population. But with its attention firmly shifted to Mr Obi, Atiku may record a far smaller tally here than he did in the last election.

We project this zone to go to Mr Tinubu, with Atiku also getting at least 25 per cent of the votes across the zone, except in Lagos where Mr Obi may snatch that advantage from him.

*South-east*

This zone has gone with the PDP in every presidential election since 1999. President Buhari only got a total of 403,968 votes from the five states in 2019, compared to the 1,693,483 it gave Atiku. The picture had even been
much bleaker for the APC candidate in 2015.

But the picture is about to change for the PDP in this zone too. Mr Obi had helped Atiku to record his largest votes in the zone from Anambra where he polled 524,738 votes. Only in Kaduna, Delta and Plateau did he get more votes per state. But Mr Obi has divested from Atiku and the PDP and is being projected as the leading horse in the zone in Saturday’s election.
The prominent politicians who rule the coast in the zone have remained on their old tracks. The PDP and APC have two governors each in the zone while APGA, on which platform Mr Obi was governor, still runs Anambra. APGA does not have much interest in the presidential race, so it is not likely to stand in the way of Mr Obi. But in the other four states, while Mr Obi enjoys grassroots support, the governments and politicians of the two big parties, especially the PDP, will give him a good fight.

The fear of violence remains a big issue here. Secessionist groups have been trying to disrupt the elections through violent attacks on the facilities of the electoral commission and the police. A faction of IPOB has also asked residents to sit at home on election days. But it is the violence that may be deployed by the politicians against themselves that offers the bigger fright. On Thursday, a senatorial candidate of the Labour Party in
Enugu State was assassinated. Imo too has recorded deadly attacks and killings since Hope Uzondima became the governor in controversial circumstances. Unless violence and the fear of it suppress voter turnout,
We project Mr Obi to record big numbers in his home zone. But Atiku and Mr Tinubu may also get at least a quarter of the votes in some of the states.

*South-south*

This zone has been a fortress of the PDP since 1999. The party has won every presidential election in the zone and has exclusively ruled five of the six states, the exception being Edo. But that state returned to the PDP
in 2019 after Governor Godwin Obaseki defected following a quarrel with his predecessor and godfather, Adams Oshiomhole. In 2019, only in the North-west did Atiku draw more votes than in this zone. He polled 2,233,232 votes to President Buhari’s 1,051396 votes. He also defeated the president in each of the six states. The South-south is the only zone aside from the North-west where one candidate won in all the states.

However, as in the neighbouring South-east, things may change dramatically here for Atiku in this presidential election. He rewarded the state that gave him the highest number of votes in the zone in 2019 by appointing its governor, Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta, as his running mate. But that choice brought him into an intractable conflict with Rivers Governor Nyesom Wike, his
closest opponent in the party primaries. The rebellion of the G5 or Integrity Group that Mr Wike has led against Atiku is one of the pivotal developments in this election cycle. Mr Wike is said to have directed his officials and supporters to vote instead for Mr Tinubu on Saturday.

The governor of Cross River, Ben Ayade, had long defected to the APC where he is running for the Senate in this election. In Bayelsa, the APC won the off-season governorship election but its candidate was not allowed by the
Supreme Court to take the seat over an infraction committed before the poll by his running mate.

All these, along with the expected intrusion of Mr Obi, mean that the PDP may emerge from the presidential election as a fallen colossus n this zone.

We project Atiku to still get the most votes from most of the states, but in significantly reduced numbers. Mr Obi will be a big beneficiary of the decline of the PDP in its stronghold. But given the current situation in Rivers, Bayelsa, Cross Rivers and Delta states, the atmosphere is bright for Mr Tinubu too and he cannot do worse in the zone than President Buhari did in 2019.

We do not expect a runoff in this presidential election. At least the candidates of two of the parties will have a majority of the votes and both seemed poised to get at least a a quarter of the votes cast in more than 24 states.

The main strength of the APC candidate is the weakness of the opposition, caused by its fragmentation and the schism in the PDP, the main opposition platform. In 2019, Messrs Obi and Kwankwaso were in the PDP. Both have now taken substantial support away from the party to run on different lanes. This makes Atiku considerably weaker than he was when he lost to President Buhari by about four million votes in 2019. He will do much better in the North-west and North-east due to the absence of Mr Buhari on the ballot, but the gains may not be enough to give him those zones or the election. And with the erosion of support he faces in the traditional PDP southern strongholds, he stands to be the main victim of the break of the APC and PDP duopoly in this electoral cycle.

In spite of the weakness of the disunited opposition, Mr Tinubu will be anxious about how much damage has been done to his bid and the general APC brand by the brutal implementation of the naira redesign policy that has brought misery upon everyday Nigerians in every part of the country.

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The rebellion of the faceless elements in government, to whom the policy has been attributed, will also be a cause for concern for the ruling party candidate. After their contrivances of the fuel and cash crises, what more do they have in their arsenal to throw at him during and after the election?