Nigerians will go the polls on Saturday, 25 February 2023 to elect a new president. Muhammadu Buhari, the current president, will not be on the ballot after having served two consecutive terms. The standard bearer of his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), will instead be his party's co-founder, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the 'godfather' of Lagos politics who governed Lagos during the first eight years of the Fourth Republic. The People's Democratic Party (PDP), which ruled Nigeria between 1999, when civil rule was restored, and 2015 will be led by Atiku Abubakar, a former Vice President who fell out with his boss, Olusegun Obasanjo, and was hounded out of the party before plotting his way back in 2017.
After six elections and 24 years of continuous competitive politics, pundits believe that Nigeria's polity can be characterised as an established two party system. In this system, voters are assumed to be locked in and new parties lack the resources, structures and experience to topple the existing order. Is Nigeria's two party system really institutionalised? Or can a third party defy the odds and create an electoral shock or upset? To address these questions, I first provide an overview of Nigeria's party system, questioning the notion of a consolidated two party regime. I then discuss four sets of hot button grievances that are likely to influence voter calculations: the country's abysmal economic condition and high levels of insecurity; the controversy over the APC's Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket; the agitation for power rotation to the geopolitical South; and the South East's claim to the presidency on the grounds of equity. This is followed by an analysis of the Peter Obi phenomenon and his Labour Party, which many believe poses the biggest threat to the two main parties. I conclude by examining some of the recent polls and advance a few scenarios on likely outcomes.
Interrogating Nigeria's Two Party System
On paper, Nigeria's political system does look like a two party regime. The APC and the PDP accounted for 99.7 percent of the votes in the 2019 presidential election and control 35 of the 36 state governments, 104 of the 109 Senators, 348 of the 360 House of Assembly members as well as most of the local government councils. However, this two party system is a recent phenomenon. The country started its democratic path as a dominant party system in which the PDP enjoyed hegemonic power over a variety of regional parties. Prior to 2015, only the PDP could be characterised as a national party: it attracted support from five of the six geopolitical zones during the foundation election of 1999 and won four consecutive elections between 1999 and 2011. Its success owed much to the national consensus spearheaded by the Northern political class to cede the presidency to the South West where agitation for the dismantling of the Nigeria project was rife after the cancellation of the June 12th 1993 presidential election that was won by Moshood Abiola, a native of that region.
The other parties that contested the presidency before 2015 were largely regional outfits. Working in alliance with the Northern-based All People's Party, the Alliance for Democracy (AD), the dominant party in the South West, rejected what it described as the Northern establishment's imposition of the PDP's Olusegun Obasanjo as a consensus candidate on the region and fielded an alternative candidate from that region, Olu Falae. Falae won all the six South West states by huge margins as well as Yobe, Zamfara and Sokoto, but failed to win in the other 27 states.
Surprisingly, despite Obasanjo's comprehensive rejection by voters in the South West in 1999, that zone became his biggest vote bank in the 2003 election when he was challenged by Muhammadu Buhari under the banner of the All Nigeria People's Party (ANPP), which drew most of its support from the North. Buhari's ANPP came a distant second with only 32% of the votes against Obasanjo's 62%. The 2003 election signalled, however, the end of the Northern consensus around Obasanjo's presidency and the PDP's dominance in the North, as Buhari won 10 of the 13 states in the North West and North East geopolitical zones. However, he failed miserably in the three zones in the South and was beaten handsomely in the North Central zone by Obasanjo. Buhari's subsequent efforts to clinch the presidency in 2007 and 2011 under the ANPP and the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) also ended in failure. The AD did not put up a candidate to challenge Obasanjo in 2003 and lost five of its six governors in the South West to the PDP--retaining only Lagos. When the party metamorphosed into the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in 2006, it revived its power in most of the Southwest states (winning the governorship elections of five of the six states and Edo but failed to make an impact in presidential elections.
The futility of competing for the presidency as separate regional parties prompted Buhari's CPC (which he formed in 2009 after decamping from the ANPP) and Tinubu's ACN to merge their respective parties into the current All Progressives Congress (APC) and contest the 2015 elections. Nigeria's two party system has thus been in existence for only eight years. This is not a long period to foreclose the rise of viable new parties or even the demise of the two main parties. It is crucial to emphasise that the electoral rules for winning the presidency have contributed substantially to the transformation of Nigeria's political parties. It is no longer enough to win only one part of the North-South regional divide, which can guarantee only 19 or 17 states. In addition to winning the majority of votes cast, parties now have to satisfy the constitutional rule of winning 25% of the votes in two thirds of the states (or 24 states) in order to secure the presidency. Under these rules, parties with a high probability of winning become big multi-ethnic tents. Indeed, both the APC and the PDP easily obtained 25% of the votes or higher in more than 24 states in the 2019 election. The PDP lost the 2019 election because it got less votes than the APC--not because it lacked geographical spread.
Are voters locked in the two party system? Political behaviour the world over suggests that inflexible voter loyalty to parties occurs when they are driven by ideologies that voters perceive as addressing their socioeconomic interests, or when parties are ethno-regional and voters perceive elections as voting for one's identity or kith and kin. However, Nigeria's two main parties are completely bereft of ideology. They are largely elite vehicles for accessing plum jobs and appropriating or sharing the state's oil wealth. The two parties are also not driven by exclusionary ethno-regional interests. Ethno-regional rivalry now takes place within--not between--parties, as well as outside the party system. The absence of ideology and ethnoregional inter-party politics accounts for the high level of defections from parties.
The three main presidential candidates, Tinubu, Atiku and Obi, have all changed parties at least twice. Atiku tops the list--he moved from the PDP to the ACN and APC before returning to the PDP. He is followed by Peter Obi who moved from the All Progressives Grand Coalition to the PDP before decamping to the Labour Party. And Tinubu has moved from the AD/APP to the ACN and the APC, although in his own case he was one of the architects of the parties he moved into. Defections by governors, federal and state House of Assembly members, local government councillors and party officials at all levels of government are also rife.
It has been estimated that an average of five Nigerian Senators changed parties every year between 1999 and 2011 (Fashagba, 2014). Similarly, during the 2015 elections, 84 members of both the Senate and the House of Assembly changed the parties on whose platforms they contested the previous election (Agan et al, 2019). And in less than two years after the 2019 elections, which the APC won, three governors, six Senators and 15 House of Assembly members of the PDP defected to the APC . Defection has, indeed, become a key part of Nigeria's political culture.
In situations where political parties are not ideological or ethnoregional and those who govern have not markedly improved voters' welfare, one should expect low voter turnout and high voter defection among parties--voting for one party in one election and another party in another election. Voter turnout has been low in Nigeria's elections, especially in the geopolitical South. In the 2019 election, for instance, only 35 percent of registered voters bothered to vote. In Lagos state, which has the highest number of registered voters, only 18 percent voted (MacEbong, 2023).
However, voter defection among parties has not been a strong feature of Nigerian politics. Indeed, voters in the South South and the South East have been highly inflexible, voting consistently for the PDP in all presidential elections since 1999. Since the formation of the APC under Buhari, voters in all seven states of the North West have also consistently voted for the APC--in 2015 and 2019. When combined with the APC's strong presence in the North East (winning five of the six states in 2015 and four in 2019), it could be concluded that voters in those two geopolitical zones are inflexible in their voting behaviour in presidential elections. This inflexibility has often been referred to as "Buhari's fifteen million voters" or vote bank in the Far North.
In contrast, voters in the South West have been more flexible than voters in the other five zones--they rejected the PDP in 1999, then enthusiastically embraced it in 2003; and even though the ACN, the dominant party in the region, dissolved into the APC for the 2015 and 2019 elections, the margin of victory of the APC in the South West states was very small in both elections. The PDP has remained an electoral force in that region. Its candidate, Atiku Abubakar, won three of the region's six states in 2019 and was very competitive in the other three. Voters in the North Central zone have also demonstrated some level of flexibility after comprehensively supporting the PDP in all presidential elections between 1999 and 2015. The APC broke the PDP's dominance in that zone in 2015, securing four of the six states; and in the 2019 election the margin of victory was very small in four states.
I hypothesise that what appears as voter inflexibility does not necessarily translate as loyalty to parties or leaders. Voting behaviour could be influenced by one or several hot button issues that may affect voters differently across states, zones and regions. To borrow a concept from German philosophy, such issues can create a zeitgeist or spirit of the times that individuals or groups are motivated to follow. A zeitgeist is no respecter of established structures, leaders or gate keepers if they hold contrary views to the prevailing mood.
The zeitgeist that informed the 1999 election was the national consensus to appease the Yoruba or the South West after the denial of the presidency to Abiola in 1993. When that consensus was broken in the North in 2003 and Buhari challenged Obasanjo for the presidency, the mood in the geopolitical South, supported by the North Central zone, was that power should not return to the Far North after only one term of a South presidency. Instructively, voters in the South West who had been critical of Obasanjo decamped from their regional party, the AD, and voted overwhelmingly for Obasanjo. Similarly, the inflexibility displayed by voters in the South South and South East could be explained by the mood of the electorate rather than a blind attachment to the PDP. The two regions were part of the national consensus that ceded the presidency to the South West in 1999. They remained loyal to the PDP when Goodluck Jonathan, a native of the South South, assumed the presidency after Umaru Yar'Adua's death, and Northern politicians tried to prevent him from contesting the presidential elections in 2011 and 2015. A new spirit of the times, as seems to be happening in the 2023 election with the candidacy of Peter Obi, who hails from the South East, may cause a rupture in relations between voters and the PDP in those two regions.
In the same vein, Buhari's so-called fifteen million voters in the North should not be seen as his personal property. The mood of the North West and large parts of the North East, especially during Jonathan's presidency, was the quest for leaders who could make the North safe and tackle its pervasive poverty and plight of out of school children. Buhari's antecedent as an army general and anti-corruption crusader when he governed the country in 1984-85 endeared him well to that electorate. Voter behaviour in Borno, the epicenter of the Boko Haram terrorist activities, is quite telling on this issue. In 2003, voters in Borno and nine other states in the North West and North East ditched the Northern consensus around Obasanjo's PDP by voting emphatically for Buhari's ANPP. However, Borno voters returned to the PDP when Jonathan contested the presidency in 2011, awarding him 77% of the votes--perhaps hoping that by investing most of their votes in Jonathan, he would work hard to end the widespread insecurity in their region. Jonathan's failure to tackle the Boko Haram insurgency led to a massive switch to Buhari's APC in the 2015 and 2019 elections, giving Buhari more than 90% of the votes in both elections. It is doubtful that Buhari can transfer his votes in those two zones to his party's candidate, Tinubu, in the 2023 election. Excluding possibilities of voting buying and rigging, the mood of the voters in those zones is likely to determine where those votes go.
Hot Button Issues and Voter Calculations
Nigerian voters seem to be seized with four hot button issues in the 2023 presidential election. The first is the awful economic condition and security environment. GDP growth has ranged from -1.6% in 2016 to 3.1% in 2022--far worse than the growth rate of 6% or higher recorded between 1999 and 2014. The annual inflation rate soared to a 17-year peak of 21.84% in January 2023; and there was a more than two-and-half-fold deterioration of the official value of the naira between 2014 and 2022, with the dollar now selling at N755 in the parallel market--N295 more than the official rate. And, astonishingly, the country was declared the 'poverty capital' of the world in 2016, with more than 90 million of its inhabitants living below the World Bank's $1.9 a day poverty level--more than India and China, each with seven times more people. To cap it all, the country's petroleum price subsidy has turned out to be a huge scam, filling the pockets of petroleum product importers who sell the product to neighbouring countries at higher prices, depriving the government of USD 9.7 billion dollars in 2022 alone. Large amounts of the country's crude oil, which accounts for 70% of government budgets and 95% of foreign exchange earnings, are now routinely stolen at source, making it difficult for the country to meet its OPEC quota. It has been estimated that since 2021, USD3.3 billion worth of crude oil has been lost to oil theft.
These woeful economic conditions have been compounded by a serious deterioration in the security environment. In addition to the long running Boko Haram insurgency, new security threats have emerged or gained ground, such as kidnappings and banditry; conflicts between Fulani cattle herders and farmers, including alarmist allegations of Fulanisation; and revival of militant separatist agitations for a Biafra republic in the South East. It has been estimated that 27,000 Nigerians have lost their lives in armed conflict, 2.2 million are displaced and more than 8.4 million need urgent humanitarian assistance (Reliefweb, 2023). And the International Crisis Group (2022) estimates that more than 5,000 Nigerians were abducted between January and mid-December 2022.
The general consensus in large parts of the country is that Buhari's APC rule has been a colossal failure. Amazingly, he has not lived up to his two selling points--his military background that should have helped to tackle the security conundrum, and his avowed zero tolerance for corruption, which should have led to a better management of the economy (Ibrahim, 2022a and b). To further compound the problem, the Central Bank of Nigeria has poorly handled its naira redesign programme in the run up to the election, causing great hardship to ordinary consumers and small business operators. The combination of hopelessness in the economic and security fields has fuelled a vibrant youth movement against the conventional parties. Some of the catchy slogans of the youth, who make up about 40 percent of registered voters (this number rises to 75 percent if the cohort of those aged 35-49 is included) and turn up in their thousands at Obi's rallies, is "We should take back our country", "A new Nigeria is possible", and "Carry me dey go for better Naija" (the Labour Party's campaign song).
The second issue is the controversy surrounding the APC's decision to field a Muslim-Muslim ticket for the presidential election. After the return to civil rule in 1999, some consensus was developing that the two top candidates of a party's presidential ticket should not have the same faith. But Tinubu, the APC's standard bearer, was in a bind in choosing his running mate. The coalition of the CPC (Buhari's old party) and the ACN (Tinubu's old party) that birthed the APC was based on the calculation that the combined votes of Buhari's CPC in the North West and North East and Tinubu's ACN in the South West would be enough to win any presidential election. After all, the North West and South West zones have more voters than any of the other four zones. Tinubu's calculation in choosing his running mate, it seems, is based on replicating Buhari's winning formula, which he (Tinubu) played a big part in constructing. It is in this sense that one can understand Tinubu's entitlement speech emi lo kan (it's my turn) in Abeokuta during the race for the party's ticket. Choosing a Northern Christian as running mate could have alienated the bulk of the Muslim voters who constitute Buhari's strongest base. However, his choice of a Muslim-Muslim ticket has angered the Christian community in the South, North Central and North East, leading to defections from the party.
The third issue is the rotation of power between the North and the South. Even though the principle of power rotation is not a constitutional requirement, the logic of managing the diversity of Nigeria's ethnoregional interests has forced politicians in both parties to embrace it. By this principle, the candidates of both the APC and PDP should be from the South in this election since the outgoing president is a Northerner. A faction of Northern politicians in the APC initially tried to scuttle the rotation principle when the Chairman of the party, Abdullahi Adamu, announced the Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, as a consensus candidate. However, Tinubu's network in the APC was too powerful to deny him the ticket, forcing the Northern faction to back down. The PDP on the other hand decided to field Atiku, a Northerner, even though he had contested the presidency in 2019 and failed. Northern members of the PDP argued that it was still the turn of the North because the last president, Jonathan, who was from their party, was a Southerner. This has not gone down well with Southern politicians and voters as well as Christians in the North Central and North East. Five PDP governors in the South (in Rivers, Enugu, Abia and Oyo states) and Benue have refused to campaign for Atiku. The Benue Governor, Samuel Ortom, has even gone further by declaring his support for Obi.
The fourth issue is the South East's claim that it is their turn to provide the presidency since previous presidents were recruited from the North, South West and South South. Igbos, who inhabit the South East, feel a huge sense of marginalisation that can be traced to their attempt to secede from the federation leading to the tragic Biafra war of 1967-70. This sense of marginalisation has generated militant calls for a new Biafra championed by Nnamdi Kanu's movement, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). Interestingly, as owners of small businesses, the Igbos are the most itenerant people in Nigeria. They can be found, often in large numbers, in all states of the federation, especially in the states bordering the South East (Delta, Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Benue, Kogi and Edo) and big commercial centres like Lagos, Kano and Kaduna. The small land area of the South East, which is only 29,525 square kilometres (the smallest among the six zones), may also be a push factor for Igbo outward migration. During the APC's primary elections there were eight Igbo candidates but none could not match Tinubu's power and influence in the party. Similarly, four Igbos contested the PDP's primary. But they were also not strong enough to defeat Atiku. The current candidate of the Labour Party even defected from the PDP before the party convention when it became clear to him that he would not win.
These four hot button issues affect voters differently. Each, or a combination of the four, seems to have created a zeitgeist or mood among voters in different states, zones or regions and may be decisive in determining how they are likely to vote. Unfortunately, apart from the issues on the economy/security and religion or the Muslim-Muslim ticket, the other two issues --power rotation to the South and the South East's claims to the presidency on grounds of fairness--do not feature in the questionnaires of polling firms for us to know how strongly voters feel about these issues. Even in the case of religion, which features in polling questionnaires, voters tend to give untruthful answers. In the Stears poll (Famoroti, 2023), for instance, even though only four percent of respondents selected religion as one of the factors determining their choice, only 17 percent of Christians supported either Tinubu or Atiku, while 43 percent chose Obi; and Obi received less than three percent of the Muslim choices. Religion is clearly an issue in this election.
All four issues strongly resonate with voters in the South East, which may explain why polls suggest that Obi is likely to get his highest votes from that region. Three issues (the economy and insecurity, the Muslim-Muslim ticket, and power rotation to the South) may shape the mood of voters in the South South. The state of the economy/insecurity and the Muslim-Muslim ticket may be driving many young voters to Obi's Labour Party in the South West, if the polls serve any useful guide (even though the Muslim and Christian faiths coexist in many Yoruba households rendering religion less potent). Respected opinion leaders in that region, such as Obasanjo and Ayo Adebanjo, head of the pan Yoruba cultural organisation, Afenifere, have also been vocal in pushing the equity argument for granting the presidency to the South East. Voters in the North West may not be vexed on the Muslim-Muslim ticket, power rotation to the South or the South East's claim to the presidency, but they worry a lot about the economy and insecurity. And voters in the North Central zone may be impacted not only by the state of the economy and insecurity, but also by the discourse on the Muslim-Muslim ticket.
The Obi-dient Movement
Apart from the APC and the PDP, 16 other candidates are contesting the presidential election. Of these 16 parties only two, the Labour Party and Rabiu Kwankwaso's New Nigeria People's Party, are believed to stand any chance of upsetting the two main parties. From the polls and observation of the NNPP's campaign rallies, Kwankwaso seems to enjoy enthusiastic support in Kano and other states in the North West and North East, but lacks traction in the geopolitical South. Even though his running mate is from Edo state, the NNPP's rally in that state, which was organised to introduce the party's six gubernatorial candidates to the South South for the first time, was poorly attended. If there is going to be an upset, it is likely to come from Peter Obi and his Labour Party. The Obi phenomenon is one of the big surprises of this election. This is the first time in the Fourth Republic's 24 years of electoral politics that a social movement has succeeded in having on the ballot an "insurgent" politician that wants to change the old order of politics.
Obi and the Labour Party are very much an odd combination. He is a wealthy businessman who had been a governor of Anambra state as well as a vice presidential candidate to the PDP's Atiku in 2019. He decamped to the Labour Party when he failed to get the PDP's ticket. Across the world, parties that have strong ties with labour movements or the underprivileged usually recruit their top tier candidates from those with a long standing involvement in the struggles of such movements. A prime example is Luis Lula da Silva, Brazil's current president, who was a trade unionist and organiser of memorable strikes that improved the conditions of workers before joining the Workers' Party. Nigeria's Labour Party, on the other hand, has been unable to field politicians in elections that have a connection with labour struggles. Starting with Olusegun Mimiko as Labour's gubernatorial candidate in Ondo state in 2007, the Labour Party seems to be attracting candidates who have defected from the dominant parties instead of nurturing them among its ranks. In the electoral union between Obi and the Labour Party, members of the party with trade union links seem to have taken a back seat, allowing Obi's personality and forceful agitation for change among Nigeria's youth to take centre stage.
After following the Labour Party's campaign activities in the last six months, it is really amazing to see how he and his running mate, the Zaria-born educationist Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, have been transformed into insurgent politicians as they try to connect with the vision and demands of their young followers. As a soft spoken person with a weak voice, Obi is not the kind of politician that one expects to arouse a crowd but he is brilliant when he speaks without a script and answers questions in townhall settings. The use of the labour movement's traditional address, "comrade", is markedly absent in the campaign; and the two candidates initially struggled to sing the Nigerian Labour Congress' solidarity song. However, what Obi lacks in historical ties to labour he compensates for by doing his homework and dazzling his audiences with copious data on the Nigerian economy, poverty and the human development index, as well as comparisons with other countries on land size and land use, food production, export earnings, electrification and industrialisation. One of his key selling points that has impressed his followers is his alleged frugality in the use of public funds when he was Governor of Anambra states. In a country where governors bequeath their states with huge debts when they leave office, he is believed to have left USD 156 million as savings based on the principle that the state should save N 100 million monthly. His key slogan, which his followers have fully embraced, is to move Nigeria "from consumption to production", and to curb the oil theft, wasteful oil subsidy and what he calls the transactional politics that produces bad governance and stifles growth. The welfare of working people surely depends on the productive capacity of an economy--and Nigeria needs a hefty boost of productive capacity to lift its citizens out of poverty. However, what is missing as a party of labour is the redistributive aspect of development, which, in Nigeria's highly unequal society, may involve addressing issues of taxation to tilt the allocation of the national wealth in favour of labouring people.
Rallies are a poor predictor of electoral outcomes. However, as a new party with no connections to the governmental structures of the 36 states, the Labour Party's rallies give an indication of the level of enthusiasm of its supporters, who are mainly young people. Obi is received in most of the events like a rock star, especially his open street rallies in market places. His supporters refer to themselves as 'Obi-dients', which may sound submissive or encourage the cultivation of a personality cult. In observing these rallies, however, one gets the impression that his supporters are investing in him and making a compact. He tells them to take note of the promises he makes and hold him accountable if he fails to deliver. It will be a mistake to assume that Obi owns the movement. Given the unusual nature of the union, both sides can defect if Obi does not win or pursues an anti-movement path if he gets into office.
Changing the Nigerian economic, social and political order punctuates the speeches at his rallies. In addressing the clamour for young, healthy and dynamic leaders, Obi does not miss the opportunity to always remind his followers that the average age of the Labour Party's top two candidates is much lower than that of the APC and PDP, both of which are led by septuagenarians. Tinubu, who is listed as 70, is prone to numerous gaffes, and even looks older and less fit than Atiku who is 76. The Labour Party's young and dynamic chairman, Julius Abure, is also a stark contrast to the ageing chairmen of the two main parties. Most of Obi's campaign organisers and speakers are young people. One of his able speakers, the electrifying social activist, Aisha Yesufu, always stays on message and connects the campaign to the struggles of the youth, especially the End-SARS protests and the killing of young people at the Lekki toll gate in 2020. Obi's running mate, Baba Ahmed, has also learned how to connect with the youth. In the Lagos rally, he had his moment of fame when he got the crowd to sing a song on struggles and change, using a call and response format reminiscent of the style of Fela, the late anti-establishment Afrobeat superstar. The movement has been effective in mining Afrobeats songs that have wide youth appeal, such as Fireboy's Bandana, which has the catchy refrain "they never see me coming", and Timaya's rhythmic hit Sweet Us, which evokes feelings of schadedenfreude against opponents ("As ee dey pain dem ee dey sweet us, as ee de sweet us omo ee dey pain dem").
Conclusion: Polls and Scenarios
Let me conclude by returning to the key question of this discussion: can Obi and the Labour Party cause an upset? All the eight polls that have been conducted since September 2022 predict Obi as the likely winner or front runner. Many of these polls do not reveal their interview formats--by telephone, face-to-face or online. Those that have given Obi remarkably high percentage points, such as Premise Data for Bloomberg (72% and 66% in its two polls) and Redfield and Wilton Strategies (62%) may have relied on online polling, which may heavily distort the sample of respondents. Two polls by Stears (Famoroti, 2023) and NIO Polls for Anap Foundation (2023), conducted in January and February 2023, reached out to respondents by telephone, which has limitations, but with an estimated 198 million active lines in Nigeria in 2020 (Oyelola, 2021) out of a population of 215 million, this is a far better way of reaching voters than using an online format. And one poll by Nextier conducted a face-face poll, which may reach a higher number of Nigerians than a telephone poll.
The NIO Polls for ANAP Foundation's February 2023 poll gives Obi 21%, Tinubu 13% and Atiku 10% of respondents' choices. However, a very high percentage of respondents (53%) are either undecided or refused to answer the questions. Even though the polling firm states that the front runner in all its previous polls (2011, 2015 and 2019) ended up as winners, a poll with 53% of non-respondents cannot be accurate. The Nextier face-to-face poll of January 2023 gives Obi 37%, Atiku 27% and Tinubu 24% of respondents choices. It interviewed 3,000 respondents with only five percent non-responses. However, even though the sample size seems more than enough to capture voter preferences at the national aggregate level, it may be too small to be statistically significant in capturing respondents' choices in each of the 36 states. The poll gives Obi a lead in 18 states, including, surprisingly, four states in the South West. It predicts that Obi will get 25 percent of the votes in 23 states, requiring a run-off election.
Perhaps, the most comprehensive and ambitious poll is the one conducted by Stears--a company run by a group of young LSE-trained Nigerians who provide data-driven insights on Nigeria's economy and politics. It has a sample size of 6,200 and booster samples for a few critical states to facilitate more precise state-level predictions. Based on declared votes, the Stears poll predicts that Obi will be first with 27 percent, Tinubu second with 15 percent and Atiku third with 12%. However, 37 percent of respondents refused to reveal their choice, making the poll inconclusive. To get round this problem, Stears developed probit models to predict which of the top three candidates each silent voter is likely to vote for. In a scenario of high voter turn out, Obi still emerges as winner with 41 percent, Tinubu with 31 percent and Atiku 20 percent. However, Tinubu leads in a low turnout scenario, polling 39 percent, Obi 32 percent and Atiku 22 percent. The extent to which the assumptions informing the allocation of silent voter choices in the model accurately reflect how silent voters will eventually vote remains an open question; and the absence of trend data on the accuracy of probit models in predicting Nigeria's previous elections calls for caution.
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Interestingly, in the Stears poll, Obi leads in three of the six geopolitical zones and is competitive in the other three. And in the Nextier poll Obi leads in 18 states. The Stears and Nextier polls are in agreement that Obi is the front runner in the South East and South South by wide margins. Even though Obi also leads in North Central in the Stears poll, that zone has a very high number of non-responses. However, in the Nextier poll Obi, Tinubu and Atiku each leads in two of the six North Central states. The South West produces divergent findings in the two polls. In the Stears poll, Obi is second behind Tinubu; however, in the Nextier poll Obi wins four of the six states. Obi's figures in the Nextier poll are poor in the North West but fairly decent in the Stears poll. However, there is a very high number of undecided or silent voters in that zone.
The high number of non-responses, absence of large data sets on a number of issues that will help the construction of representative samples, and contradictory poll findings on some states or zones by different polling firms makes it difficult to fully accept the accuracy of polls in Nigeria. This is virgin territory that requires time to deliver polls that are of comparable quality to those in more established democracies. The entry of smart, data-driven young Nigerians in the field is likely to improve the quality of polls in future elections.
Having said this, I think the polls do suggest, at a minimum, that Obi is not the so-called social media candidate that lacks a ground game or structures to win the election as is widely believed by the traditional political class and pundits. We have seen that both the APC and PDP are capable of winning 25 percent of the votes in 24 states. The ANAP poll also predicts that Obi can win 25 percent of the votes in 23 states, one short of the magic 24. And Obi's lead in three geopolitical zones and competitiveness in the three others in the Stears poll also suggests a spread that is likely to give him 25 percent of the votes in 24 states. Obi's strength in the South East, South South, North Central and Lagos and competitiveness in the North East and parts of the North West should not be underestimated.
Can any of the three candidates win in the first round? A first round win is very possible for all three candidates because the electoral rule for declaring a president places a lot more premium on geographical spread than on the total votes won. In a three- or four-way race a candidate can get less than 30% of the total votes cast and still win if he is able to win 25 percent of the votes in 24 states. Each of the three top candidates can win on the first ballot. Atiku can do this if he is able to inherit the majority of Buhari's votes in the North West and North East and hope that the PDP's traditional hold on the South East and South South will hold back Obi's apparent tidal wave in those zones. Similarly, Tinubu can win in the first round if he is able to replicate Buhari's winning formula by inheriting his votes in the North West and North East and pushing back Obi's threat in the South West. Obi's first round victory depends on a strong performance in the South East, South South and North Central and a decent showing in the other three regions (replicating Jonathan's winning coalition in 2011). He will benefit greatly if the struggle for the votes in the North West and North East become a four-or three-way race.
If there is a runoff election, Obi's best path to the presidency is to face Atiku, who will be disadvantaged in the South and other parts of the North because of the three hot button issues of power rotation to the South, the South East's claim to the presidency on equity grounds, and the religious factor. Sections of Northern voters may also not be very enthusiastic to turn out and vote for another Northerner after eight years of Buhari. However, a run-off between Obi and Tinubu will be difficult to predict, with Tinubu having an edge if he inherits Buhari's voters.
All these scenarios assume that the vote will be free and fair, which in the history of elections in Nigeria and the current political environment cannot be taken for granted. The 2007 election is widely believed to be the most tainted election in Nigeria. A breakdown of the presidential election results by state is still not available to the public. Even though INEC is assuring the public that the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) will eliminate overvoting and vote buying, past practices have made Nigerians to be sceptical of the ability of the electoral body to conduct free and fair elections. A survey by Afrobarometer (2023) suggests that only 23 percent of Nigerians trust INEC "somewhat" or "a lot". The dangers of voter suppression are real, such as the sit-at-home threat in the South East by a faction of IPOB; intimidation of voters, such as the recent audio clip of threats to non-indigenous traders in Lagos to vote for the APC or face eviction; vote buying, which the naira redesign policy is allegedly aiming to prevent in the face stiff resistance from ruling party politicians; and the possibility of defection of Labour Party polling agents who may be incentivised to join the traditional parties in the North East and South West, for instance, where there have already been reported cases of defections by Labour Party candidates. However, if these threats are contained, this may well turn out to be a landmark election that will open up possibilities for the country's renewal. Nigeria is too important in West Africa and the rest of the continent to be trapped in bad governance.
References
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Anap Foundation, 2023, 2023 "Elections: Peter Obi maintains lead amongst Presidential Poll Respondents". Press Release. 15 February. https://www.anapfoundation.com/press-releases/2023-elections-peter-obi-maintains-lead-amongst-presidential-poll-respondents
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MacEbong, J. 2023, "Why Tinubu could lose to Peter Obi in Lagos". February. https://www.stears.co/premium/article/why-tinubu-could-lose-to-peter-obi-in-lagos/
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Yusuf Bangura wrotes from Nyon, Switzerland. Email: Bangura.ym@gmail.com
