It is now over a year since Nigerians
made history proving to the world again that peaceful transition was, in fact,
possible in Africa.
The election having been won and lost, it appears that some
people still feels the scars of the pains of defeat as though it happened
yesterday. One of such persons is a political commentator, Femi Aribisala.
Notice I used called him a political
“commentator”, not an “analyst”, as he wants many of his readers to believe he
is. In other to be seen as a being scientific in his write-ups, he sometimes
taught us “How to Lose Presidential Elections Four Times” not minding the fact
that he will later tell us “Why Buhari Will Never be President of Nigeria”. As
funny as the premises on which some of his arguments were based, he had those
who based their “analyses” on many of his unscientific conclusions.
In parenthesis, this prediction reminds
me of former Soviet’s leader (Nikita
Khrushchev’s) famous statement, “We will bury you” speaking to Western
diplomats about Soviet’s confidence of “burying” their rivals in the heat of
the Cold Warin 1956.
After winning a gold medal for his
woeful predictions, Femi needs to save his face. To do this, someone or
something has to be the scapegoat. Only recently did I read his, “How Jega
Defeated Jonathan For Buhari”. As I finished reading this, I concluded that he,
after searching all over for whom to blame for his wrong diagnoses (if he ever
did any), chose Professor Attahiru Jega,
the then INEC Chairman, as his perfect whip boy.
Like a typical public school pupil whofailed
his papers, he blames his dismal performance on anything and everything but
himself-his teacher, his parents, his friends his foes, the test questions or
anything that can easily justify his point!
Let us be quick to admit, writing from
firsthand experience working as a psephologist, that the job of predicting the
outcomes of elections could be mucky, complex and dangerous (requiring you
sometimes to put your career on the line). Predicting elections requires some
level of dispassion. When you get too involved and end up with a wrong
prediction, one ends us frustrated like Femi because there are often too many
variables waiting to alter your experiment and get you frustrated.
The lack of emphatic details led to the
famous Literary Digest fiasco in 1936 which wrongly predicted a
defeat for US President Franklin Roosevelt. Many will equally not forget the
recent case of Gallup Poll which predicted a victory for the Republican
candidate, Mitt Romney against President Obama in 2012.
I cited these cases to show how
complicated predictive analyses can be sometimes. If these reputable institutions
can err this much, Femi needs neither to rant nor look for scapegoats since no
one is infallible. All that was expected of him was simply be professional by
updating his system of analyses like Gallup and others have done!
This should not be a platform for
reminding brother Femi what is and what is not political analyses. But, I will
to say that every political analyst (except if so-called) should know that some
experiments that cannot be performed for ethical and practical reasons in
political analyses. We cannot, unfortunately, re-run the 2015 presidential
election under another INEC chairman to test for differences in outcomes. If
Jega were not the Electoral Commission boss and it was someone else, whether
the outcome of the election would have been significantly different is to say
the least, counter-factual or virtual history.
Because we consider it futile to engage
in virtual history, let us go back in time to compare data that are real. To
argue, like Uncle Femi did, that Jaga “rigged” the election for Buhari is to note
that the 2007 elections would have had a different outcome had Professor
Maurice Iwu not been the then INEC chair. Or that had Femi Aribisala been the
chairman of the National Electoral Commission (NEC) during the June 12, 1993
election, Chief MKO Abiolawould have been sworn-in as President!
Let us still hold on to his postulation
that Jega, not APC “defeated” Jonathan in the 2015 election. Perhaps, Femi needs
to be consistent since he told us in another article that just immediately
after the same Jega he now criticizes, announced the postponement of the
election by six weeks, that the partywas low on cash and therefore, in shambles
and crumbling. Where is consistency? Where is coherence in your “analysEs”? Was
it alsoJega that “rigged in” Jonathan in 2011? Mr. Femi!
I am aware that some people will bring
in the point that the APC appeared stronger now than the Congress for
Progressives Change (CPC) or the Action Congress of Nigeria(ACN) was in 2011
making it comfortable enough for it to be rigged into office in 2015. If we
take this on its face value, then our firm conclusion will then be that the APC
won the 2015 presidential election because it was stronger in all intent and
purposes having grown massively over a period of four years as against its PDP
counterpart!
Looking at the three-party game that
played out in 2011, one will see that Jonathan won due some complications. I do
not expect many people to agree with this, buthad the ACN entered into any form
of agreement with the CPC then, the election would have ended in a re-run whose
outcome is highly unpredictable as the events in 2015 clearly show!
The same situation played out in 2015
the only difference being that the progressive forces achieved what many
doubted as a possibility-the formation of APC. It should therefore not surprise
objective political analysts why the party won.
The professional thing expected from
Femi Aribisala after making such wrong prediction was simply to apologize to
his readers and move on rather than look for scapegoats. His post-election
rants against Buhari and the APC, including his recent display at an event in
the University of Lagos, show that he is yet to recover from the trauma of 2015
electoral defeat of the “hero of democracy”.
Could this be why there was so much
campaign from Jonathan’s supporters to sack Jega just weeks to the 2015
elections?
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You're one of the pretenders masquerading as writers and intellectuats. This your piece is a trash. I don't even know what you are trying to achieve with this pedestrian easy that can hardly pass for a Junior secondary school work. Femi in his works exhumes intellectual sagacity and you see the line of thought flowing with facts and figures ...very all researched and rendered. Femi is head and toe above you. In shirt he is on a class if his own.I just wanted NY time reading this your watery jaundiced piece. I have just noted it and anytime I see any piece with the same name, I just simply skip it.
ReplyDeleteWhat a waste! The fact that butterflies have wings do not and will never make them birds. Femi is a Master, matured and objective in his write - ups and contributions.Olalekan Waheed Adigun you are a toddler in where Femi is especially in that area of political risk analyst and independent political strategist you are claiming to be. I will advise you meet and seek professionalism from Femi, cause that's your only way forward
ReplyDeleteWhat a waste of time. I got tired at paragraph 3 and skipped to comments. Nonsense article. You are a joke Olalekan Adigun.
ReplyDelete