The presidential election and the x factor, By Simbo Olorunfemi

An interrogation of the results leads one to the conclusion that whereas the win might have been in favour of the candidate that not a few analysts had projected, the manner of the victory didn’t turn out as expected, with the win coming more on account of variables not envisaged, which I totalise here as the X factor, even as voter turnout and voter suppression were equally critical factors.

The presidential election is now behind us, won and lost, except for a possible turnaround by the Courts. Some might disagree with that assertion. Well, there is now some sigh of relief, at least, for those of us who have been eager to simply get on with it, so that the air of uncertainty hanging over the land can abate, as uncertainty does make the weather inclement.

Some have said that there has never been anything like the just-concluded presidential election in the history of Nigeria. That is true, to a large extent. In the build-up to the election, some analysts likened it to the 1979 election. Perhaps that had to do with the fact that there were four ‘major’ parties in this election, just as there were five of such in the ’79 elections. In this context, a major party is one capable of winning at least one state.

Even though I didn’t quite understand the similarities between the two elections beyond the point above and didn’t also see the point of the finality with which some pronounced the hypothesis that in any election where there are more than two major candidates from the South, the candidate from the North is bound to win. That I found rather simplistic, as it lumps up the different elections without regard for the peculiarities particular to each. Well, that hypothesis has not only turned out false, but the result of the election is also further proof of our argument that no election is decided on the basis of one factor, no matter how germane it might appear to be.

Back to the recently concluded election, it is instructive that since the 1979 election in which the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), the winning party, was only able to muster 34% of the votes in the presidential election, this would be the first time that a winner will emerge in the presidential election with as low as 34% of the popular votes. In fact, since 1999, at no point had any winner won less than 50% of the votes, even when in most of the elections, there were at least three major parties.

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To further underscore how this election stands out from the rest, while in 1979 the NPN won nine out of the 19 states, which was about 50%, the APC in this election was only able to win 12 states out of the 36 and the FCT, which is about 34% of the states. So, in terms of historical context, the proportion of votes won by the APC in the last election is the lowest ever. Of course, that doesn’t, in any way, invalidate the mandate, as it sits on the right side of the law. In any case, our democracy doesn’t presuppose that the leader must have majority of the votes, as the highest number of votes in the election legally suffices, once it is backed by the requisite geographical spread. Well, that is if the new argument around the status of the FCT is not in consideration.

It is only important, however, that the leader is humble and wise to internalise what it means to emerge with minority votes, interrogate the circumstances of his win and do the best to accommodate alternative voices so that consensus can be more easily forged so that people are able to come together rather than be pulled apart.

Even though the fact that the 2023 election would turn out to be unlike any other had been settled before the day by the historic coalescence of different interests and agitation around the candidacy of Peter Obi, yet analysts who know the right mix between data, street intelligence and the right understanding of the electoral geography had the APC candidate, Asiwaju Tinubu, in spite of the surge of headwinds against his camp towards the conclusion of the campaign. Even then, data analytics clearly pointed at a tight contest, leaning more in the direction of a run-off even till the last minute.

While the results have emerged to validate the projection of Asiwaju as the frontrunner, with some who called it right beating their chests for doing so, an interrogation of the path to the eventual victory would reveal that the path was not as many had indeed projected. Rather, it was a path through unfamiliar territories, bringing with it unexpected ‘losses’ and unprojected ‘wins’ in the mix before the mandate was actualised. Few, if any, predicted the path the victory eventually took, as it was a trail of underperformance in some instances and overperformance in others, both coming together to patch up the victory for the winner. In fact, a sober interrogation will see the victory as one that followed the most unpredictable of routes, including unexpected losses in Lagos and Katsina, as well as unprojected wins in Benue and Rivers, underperforming in some states and overperforming in others.

Days before the election, I finally had the chance to interrogate the 2019 election results as basis for extrapolating for a possible outcome of the 2023 election. From that exercise came a few takeaways which I shared here – voter turnout might be the most important factor in the election. Apathy and voter suppression would be as critical as margin of lead and loss, as every vote will count. I made the point that the number of votes the party secures from polling points, which it does not win, will matter more than ever at the end of the day.

Contrary to the assertion that the Labour Party surge and the NNPP wave in Kano was only going to take votes away from the PDP, I didn’t quite see it that way. I had factored Labour hitting into the performance of APC in Lagos, not necessarily to the point of winning, but it is apparent that Labour did not win with the aid of only the traditional PDP votes but some of the APC votes. Across the length and breadth of the South-East…

One point I saw but didn’t share then, was that the pathway to victory for the PDP was brighter than I had originally thought. In fact, working strictly with data extrapolated from the 2019 results, even with the sharp division within the party, one could still put the party in the pole position. It was up to the PDP to lose. But of course, there is always room for possible intervening variables, room for the X factor.

An interrogation of the results leads one to the conclusion that whereas the win might have been in favour of the candidate that not a few analysts had projected, the manner of the victory didn’t turn out as expected, with the win coming more on account of variables not envisaged, which I totalise here as the X factor, even as voter turnout and voter suppression were equally critical factors.

Election results from a few states ran starkly in contrast with projections by many analysts. These results will eventually end up making decisive contributions in swinging the eventual outcome the way it did. Few, if any, ‘serious’ analyst called Rivers for the APC. Yiaga Africa had projected 21.7% for APC, 22.2% for the PDP and 50.8% for Labour. Even with Wike as a factor, though blowing hot and cold at the same time, fewer would have envisaged the margin between APC and PDP or that APC will have almost three times the number of votes garnered by the PDP. APC would go home with 44.2%, PDP 16.9%, with Labour banking 33.4%.

The results from Benue followed almost a similar pattern. I, along with many others, had called the state for Labour. Even with the influence of Senator Akume and the surge in interest attributed to the “Yes, Father” move, few, if any, saw the APC beating Labour to the tape, even if by a narrow margin of 2,096 votes.

Obviously, we were wrong. We didn’t see this coming. I did not see APC’s strong showing in Edo State, beating PDP to the second place, just as it did in Kano. As we had projected, victory had more to do with the level of performance in places in which the party does not win. A strong second in states such as Rivers Kano, Edo, Yobe, Bauchi, Gombe, Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Plateau, Sokoto, Imo, Nasarawa, Cross River, and even in Osun, Kaduna, Katsina and Lagos, which the party lost contrary to some projections, as well as a strong third in Taraba came together to help push the APC across the tape.

In almost all the aforementioned states, some of which were traditionally PDP states, even with the Labour Party tsunami, I doubt that many saw the level of underperformance by the PDP. Even with the cat and mouse game on the part of the G-5 governors, not many would have seen that the PDP would lose its way that much that it will not be able to muster enough votes to come second in Rivers, Edo and Benue States and even in Plateau, Imo and Cross River States. But such was its underwhelming performance that some argue that it was a case of PDP losing this election, rather than APC winning it. Even with the Labour Party surge and the G-5 effect taken out of the equation, it is difficult to fault the argument that the PDP grossly underperformed, especially when the state-by-state results are placed side-by-side with that of 2019.

Contrary to the assertion that the Labour Party surge and the NNPP wave in Kano was only going to take votes away from the PDP, I didn’t quite see it that way. I had factored Labour hitting into the performance of APC in Lagos, not necessarily to the point of winning, but it is apparent that Labour did not win with the aid of only the traditional PDP votes but some of the APC votes. Across the length and breadth of the South-East, South-South and North-Central, I had taken out of the 2019 votes for APC, just as I did for the PDP. Even then APC managed to stem the tide better than the PDP, given the aggregate score for each from the three geo-political zones. In all, the APC won three geo-political zones, pocketing the North-Central, along with the South-West and the coveted North-West, which, as projected, became the decider in the election.

In almost all the states where the declared results might suggest ‘over-performance’ on the part of the APC, it was equally indicative of a below par performance on the part of the PDP. While the party took Katsina, Kebbi, Kaduna and Sokoto, four of the seven states in the most crucial North-West, which might suggest a more dominant performance in the region, not only was the margin of victory over the APC minimal, but the Kano performance by the APC was also so huge that it virtually wiped off the minimal wins by the PDP across these four states.

Even though I had submitted that the performance of the parties in states which they do not win was going to be most critical, I did not envisage that it was going to be as critical as it eventually turned out. The numbers ferried in by the APC in Kano, where it emerged as a comfortable second, turned out as a critical game changer in delivering the North-West, especially with the NNPP playing the role of spoiler, taking valuable votes off PDP’s books.

The Labour Party was the main beneficiary of the missteps on the part of both the PDP and APC. It massively harvested from the wave of discontentment around a long list of issues that manifested as apparent discombobulation on the part of both APC and PDP. At the end, APC won, not because those factors which weighed against the ticket did not matter, but because the other major opponent presented an equally flawed ticket…

If there was ever a chance for the PDP to regain power at the centre, this was one. As if its choice of candidate against the code of the rotational arrangement between the North and South was not bad enough, it so badly mismanaged the fallout from the primary elections that one might assume that it was on a desperate mission to lose the election.

Some have expressed surprise at the performance of the Labour Party. I am not at all surprised. In fact, I came eerily close to the exact figures by the Labour Party, missing it by hundreds, in the extrapolation exercise I carried out a few days to the election, simply playing around with possible figures for the parties, based on the 2019 election results. I projected over six million votes and 14 states for Labour Party.

But then, while I expected a strong performance in Lagos, I did not expect or project a win for the party. Labour ‘over-performed’ in some states, relative to my projection. It relatively underperformed in others as well. I had tipped Labour to take Benue, Rivers and Bayelsa, but they lost these three states. But then, even as I envisaged a strong performance in Delta, I didn’t see that level of dominance that will make it double the votes of an underperforming PDP. But it is what it is. You win some, you lose some. Labour Party has done well, with a lot of promise for the future, as long as the drivers of the movement do not mistake a marathon for a sprint.

The Labour Party was the main beneficiary of the missteps on the part of both the PDP and APC. It massively harvested from the wave of discontentment around a long list of issues that manifested as apparent discombobulation on the part of both APC and PDP. At the end, APC won, not because those factors which weighed against the ticket did not matter, but because the other major opponent presented an equally flawed ticket, while Labour, the beneficiary of the winter of discontent could only muster so much across the country, given the interplay of other factors not in its favour.

As we had previously argued, the idea that the election can or would be decided based on a single factor is flawed. Elections are usually won and lost based on a multiplicity of factors. That was even more evident in this election. If we take the figures presented as they really are, it is the multiplicity of the factors as we have partially highlighted here that became the wind in the wings of the winner, helping him to sail to victory, even if in doing so, he had to make do with less than 50% of the votes cast, winning only 12 states.

Again, as previously submitted, what the law requires is for there to be substantial compliance with the law. INEC is the one charged with the responsibility of determining if there has been a substantial compliance, in the first instance. That it has done in this case, submitting that the APC has fulfilled the conditions prescribed in the Constitution and the Electoral Act. The Jagaban of Borgu, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has been validly elected.

He has his work clearly cut out for him. That, he is obviously aware of, and has set out to do, as his words suggest an understanding and willingness to bring different voices and forces together. His words:

“Yes, there are divisions amongst us that should not exist. Many people are uncertain, angry and hurt; I reach out to every one of you. Let the better aspects of our humanity step forward at this fateful moment. Let us begin to heal and bring calm to our nation.” Hopefully, we will do all we can to keep pulling in the same direction, rather than seeking to move forward with the gaze firmly fixed on the things that divide us.

Simbo Olorunfemi works for Hoofbeatdotcom, a Nigerian communications consultancy and publisher of Africa Enterprise. Twitter: @simboolorunfemi