Why is Tinubu so confident?

VIEW FROM THE GALLERY BY MAHMUD JEGA

Why did All Progressives Congress [APC] presidential candidate Asiwaju Bola Tinubu declare at the Kaduna Investment Summit on Saturday that, “I’m confidently telling you that I will lead this country in 2023 with your support”? Some people thought it was presumptuous of him to say so. But upon some long-distance, presumptuous peering of my own into Tinubu’s mind, I think there may be some good reasons why he said so.

First of all, in Nigeria here, a candidate must publicly express confidence that he or she will win the election, reality notwithstanding. This is because contesting election in Nigeria is so difficult that unless you assure yourself that you are going to win, there is no way you can go for weeks and months without sleep, holding meetings endlessly with supporters and even with suspected non-supporters, pouring money as if into a bottomless pit, travelling endlessly and never spending two nights in one bed, respectfully listening to what politicians are telling you even when you know it is a lie, pretending to be a fool and believing every yarn that supporters tell you, patiently listening to clerics and babalawos claiming that they can deliver the election to you, pretending you do not know that members of your “women and youth support groups” are running with the hare and hunting with the hound because they move from your house straight to your opponent’s house.

Even more than yourself, as a candidate you must assure your followers that you are confident of winning. The last thing that a Nigerian election candidate should do is to express doubt about his or her chances of winning the election. If you do that, all your followers will disperse and move straight to the house of the person that is more likely to win the election. After all, there is no ideology involved here. The only ideology, if it is one, is winning and the expectation of spoils thereafter.

It is possible to keep up the act in Nigeria because there are no reliable opinion polls. For a combination of technical, logistic, educational and cultural reasons, it is near impossible to carry out a scientific opinion poll here, such as they do in Europe and North America, and state with confidence that this candidate is gaining or is slipping in the polls. Or, that he must campaign in this region or with that demographic, or that the gap between him and his opponent has widened beyond redemption and there is nothing he or she can do about it.

But don’t underestimate Nigerian politicians. Opinion polls or no, they have a very good grasp of the statistics, demographics, issues and pitfalls in every state. For example, since 1991 when the National Population Commission stopped asking questions about tribe and religion in national censuses, there are no official figures about these demographics. Politicians however have a very good idea of them in every state. That is why, since 1999, major parties in some states have consistently fielded Christian-Christian governorship tickets, other states have consistently fielded Muslim-Muslim tickets, a handful of states have fielded religiously mixed tickets, while in a few, mostly South Western states, the religious faith of governorship candidates did not seem to matter.

I do not know how sophisticated the research department of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s campaign is to have concluded that his ticket with Senator Kashim Shettima is on course to win next year’s presidential election. Assuming they actually believe what they say, there are many factors that they must have taken into consideration before arriving at this definitive conclusion.

One of them is APC’s control of the Federal Government. Apart from the 1999 election which was supervised by a military government, we have had five other presidential elections in this Republic and the party in control of the Federal Government won four of them, a predictive factor of 80%. On three occasions, the winners were incumbents, in all cases with weak records, while on one occasion, the ruling party managed to persevere with a weak candidate. Control of the Federal Government is an important factor because it guarantees flow of money from public and private sources, guarantees access to government-controlled media, and also guarantees the [hidden] cooperation of security agencies. Besides, an incumbent government can switch policies, grant favours, make appointments and accelerate projects to suit political goals.

After the Federal Government, the next biggest political factor in Nigeria are state governors. At present APC has 22 of them, which will shrink to 21 before next year’s election. Given the near absolute control that governors have over state treasuries, state civil services, state-owned media and traditional rulers, it is no surprise that incumbent governors, no matter how unpopular, have lost elections in Nigeria only once in a while. Even that was often because Federal power was brought to bear on a state. If all 21 APC governors deliver their states to Tinubu/Shettima ticket in February and nothing more, that is enough to guarantee victory. That is however not 100% certain, because voters in some states have shown the ability to separate between presidential and other elections.

Some examples readily come to mind. In 2011, Kano voters voted for Muhammadu Buhari in the presidential poll and turned around two weeks later and elected a PDP governor, Rabi’u Kwankwaso. Nasarawa voters did the reverse; they voted for PDP’s Goodluck Jonathan for president and two weeks later they elected a CPC governor, Tanko Al-Makura. In Borno State too, voters overwhelmingly chose CPC’s Buhari for president but two weeks later, elected ANPP’s Kashim Shettima as governor. In Imo State in 2011, voters gave Goodluck Jonathan overwhelming support, but two weeks later they elected APGA’s Rochas Okorocha as governor. And in the South West in 2011, voters chose PDP’s Jonathan for president but turned around and elected a string of ACN governors. Apart from these exceptions, the general rule in Nigerian politics is for states to vote for the same party in both polls.

The third, important calculation that Tinubu’s researchers may have made is the electoral history of states. States such as Borno, Yobe and Lagos have never voted for PDP in any election. Others such as Ogun, Ondo and Ekiti voted for PDP only once in governorship and twice in presidential elections. On the other hand, states such as Rivers, Delta, Cross River, Enugu, Ebonyi and Taraba have always voted for PDP in presidential and governorship polls. Bayelsa voted against a PDP governorship candidate only once. All the other states have a mixed record of cross party voting, but in the last two election cycles, majority of them voted for APC.

Then there is the regional factor. Tinubu must be confident that he will win all the South Western states, PDP governors in Oyo and Osun states notwithstanding. He could only hope that APC governors in Ebonyi, Imo and Cross River could deliver their states to him, although this is unlikely, given the Obi factor in the South East as well as Cross River voters’ near-solid record for voting PDP.

With the South so politically fractured, with APC, PDP and Labour Party likely to grab one of its three geopolitical zones each, it is the 19 Northern states that are in play. This realization is the main reason for Tinubu’s choice of the Muslim/Muslim ticket, for which he received a lot of bashing from CAN and others. Before before [to use Nigerian parlance], Tinubu will not be so confident of a win in the North against Atiku Abubakar, but Northern voters’ appetite for one of their own as president has considerably evaporated in recent times, at least partly due to the Buhari Administration’s less than smashing performance record. Many Northerners are resigned to rotating power to the South and in their minds, a Yoruba man is the most acceptable among the Southern tribes.

I remember visiting the late Malam Liman Ciroma in his house in Kaduna in the run up to the 1999 elections. Though an ardent Obasanjo supporter, he complained to me that Yoruba newspaper writers were still attacking the North despite its pledge to support Obasanjo. I quietly remarked that Northerners could support Dr. Alex Ekwueme instead. Malam Liman however said, “No. It is only Yoruba that we can trust to manage a diverse polity, because their ancestors built diverse kingdoms.” Remember that he was a trained archeologist and a top flight Federal civil servant.

This complex tribal affinity showed in other ways, such as when Borno State Governor Muhammadu Goni appointed a Yoruba man as Secretary to the State Government in 1979. When challenged, he referred to the traditional joking affinity between Kanuri and Yoruba. In 1983 too, when FEDECO denied registration to PPP and its Northern governors had to decide what to do, Abubakar Rimi argued that they go to NPP because of the history of NCNC/NEPU accord in the First Republic. But Goni said he would rather go to UPN because of the Yoruba/Kanuri affinity. [Is that a factor in the Tinubu/Shettima ticket? We don’t know!]

Last but not the least factor in Tinubu’s expressed confidence, is the on-going rift in the main opposition PDP. Right now, four of its 13 state governors are again in Spain, further widening the rift. Even though PDP’s presidential candidate is so far campaigning more aggressively than APC’s, the rift in the party is making more headlines. Although Labour Party candidate Peter Obi’s social media supporters also express confidence that he is in good stead to win, Obi’s popularity in the South East is actually a boost factor for Tinubu. APC never hoped to get a lot of votes in the South East and is very happy if Obi weans votes away in a traditional PDP stronghold.

I am not privy to APC Presidential Campaign’s Research and Strategy files, but it is probably these calculations that have bolstered Tinubu’s confidence that he is the next occupant of Aso Rock, barring accidents or a major shift in political trends.