The president-elect, Bola Tinubu emerged through a highly
contested presidential election and he is expected to be sworn in as the 16th
president of Nigeria.
The former Lagos State governor emerged despite several
polls by different organizations that wrote him off. Also, the naira
redesigning policy almost torpedoed his presidential ambition at the last
minute but barring any court pronouncement, he will be sworn in as president on
29 May.
In this piece, here are five major factors that paved the
way for him to emerge against all odds.
A divided opposition
Tinubu went into the election against a fragmented
opposition. In 2019, Abubakar Atiku, Peter Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso all worked
together in PDP but they were defeated by the force of Muhammadu Buhari.
Despite the defeat, PDP maintained its stronghold in the
Southeast and Southsouth and also put out good showings in Southwest and
Northcentral.
On Saturday, the APC instead faced Obi in Labour Party,
Kwankwaso in NNPP and Atiku in PDP. In addition, some members of the G5
governors were believed to have worked for the ruling party.
At the close of the poll, Kwankwaso maintained its hold on
Kano, Obi held on to Southeast and Southsouth while Atiku had a good outing in
the North, however, their individual performances were not sufficient to defeat
the ruling party.
Northcentral came to
rescue
Several opinion polls before the election ceded Northcentral
to the candidate of the Labour Party but the ruling party pulled a surprise in
the region by winning four states, including Benue State.
The party won Kwara, Kogi, Niger, and Benue States. It would
be recalled that no one has won the presidential election without winning the
Northcentral.
Second position is
good
One other factor that helped the ruling party was the
ability to secure the second position in a worst-case scenario.
For instance, in Kano State, the NNPP won the state with a
wide margin, however, the margin between Tinubu and Atiku was over 380,000
votes. Considering that Atiku was the main contender to Tinubu in the
Northwest, the second position was good enough.
In a four-horse race, winning your stronghold is important
but how you perform in your opponent’s territory matters.
In the Northwest, Tinubu lost Katsina, Sokoto and Kebbi
States by slim margins to Atiku.
In Plateau, Akwa-Ibom, Nasarawa—he was also able to maintain
second position.
Strong Allies
The victory of Tinubu in Benue State could be credited to
the influence of Father Hyacinth Alia, the APC governorship candidate in Benue
State.
In Sokoto State, Aliyu Wamakko ensured that the Director
General of the Atiku Campaign, Governor Aminu Tambuwal was unable to deliver
Sokoto to Atiku with a wide margin.
In Katsina, President Muhammadu Buhari had to show his
ballot to voters to give them a signal on how to vote.
The presence of Godswill Akpabio in Akwa-Ibom helped to get
the second position while Governor Nyesom Wike pulled what could have been
considered impossible—for the first time, APC won in Rivers State.
Poor performance of
Atiku in the South
Some supporters of the former Vice President had in the
course of the campaign bragged about the 11 million votes. However, what they
failed to consider was that bulk of it came from the south.
Unlike the 2019 election, Atiku performed poorly in the
South and Northcentral.
He failed to win a single state in Northcentral and won only
three states out of the 17 states in the south—Osun, Akwa- and Bayelsa.
Even his running mate, Ifeanyi Okowa failed to win his
state, Delta State.
All these factors gave Tinubu a win at the polls.
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Above all, God destined Muslim Muslim ticket led by tinubu to be the winner despite all d hatred from religious bigots especially little former class teacher dogara and chir chir who declared that over their dead body a m/m ticket will sail through. . Thank God they are alive to witness the swearing in of mm ticket and there is nothing they can do about it
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