Barely five months to the general elections, politicians have started strategising, regrouping and making statements that remind the electorate that power belongs to them. In the build up to the 2015 elections, several factors came to play which ultimately shaped the narrative outcome of the elections. Then, the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) bent on consolidating power while the opposition party, which emerged from the coalition of four main parties, All People’s Congress, hinged its campaign strategy on ‘change.’
As February 19, 2019 general elections draws closer, and as politicians are defecting to different political parties, political and public analysts are keen to know the variables to look out for, which are likely to shape the 2019 elections. Are we expecting a replay of 2015 factors or are there new events that will shape the 2019 general elections? Here are some of the significant factors that will impact on the 2019 general elections:
- Insecurity
One major campaign strategies the present administration used against Goodluck Jonathan’s PDP’s government was the issue of insecurity in the country. At the time, bombs were frequently heard and Boko Haram made headlines. The April 14, 2014 abduction of 276 school girls from Government Secondary School, GGSS, Chibok, Borno State, totally reduced the credibility of the then PDP government. The opposition party at the time capitalised on the security issues in the country to woe voters, describing Jonathan’s government as weak and incompetent.
Security experts believe the Chibok girls saga may have discredited PDP’s administration, however “the insecurity in the country at the moment is even more worrisome comparing to Jonathan’s administration”, said Nelson Oluigbo, a security expert in Lagos. “There was security issue in the building up to the 2015 elections, but today we have Boko Haram, herdsmen, kidnapping in the country”, said Jide Ojo, a public and political analyst, in an interview with BusinessDay.
It is unfortunate that what APC accused PDP of is what is happening in the country now, if not even more. The abduction of 110 school girls from their Government Girls Technical Science College, GGTSC, Dapchi, Yobe State, is a dent on Buhari’s administration. Although President Muhammadu Buhari has recovered most of the Dapuchi girls (the five who reportedly died notwithstanding), his inability to rescue the lone girl, Leah Sharibu, still undermines his (Buhari’s) government.
What is more, definitely the issue of Fulani herdsmen killing Nigerians and getting away without prosecution, and in some instances, the president defending the herdsmen will surely have impacts on the voting pattern. “If no other region considers the menace of herdsmen in their voting pattern, the North Central must surely do. This is simply because the herdsmen had done a lot of havoc in that region without the president protecting the citizens”, said John Akinyele, Ogun State based lawyer and political analyst.
- Tribal factor
Judging from the political players that have already indicated interest for the top job come 2019, some analysts say Nigerians may not vote along tribal line. This is not to say that Nigerians would not want to, but the players on ground do not give Nigerians the opportunity to vote along tribal lines. More so, it will ultimately not give the presidential candidates the opportunity to play on Nigerian emotions based on tribal differences. “When you look at the main contenders from the two political parties, PDP and APC, those who have shown interest and likely to pick the ticket are from the North. I don’t see the chances of those from the Middle Belt getting the presidential ticket,” Ojo said.
Nigerians are now politically wiser, knowing that vice president as well as deputy governors do not have constitutional authority in government as long as their bosses are around. A clear case is what is currently at play with the current VP Yemi Osinbajo, where he made some decisions while his boss was away but such decisions were reversed by the president. So, irrespective of the region a presidential candidate brings his vice presidential candidate from, it may not play a key role in the 2019 presidential elections, as it did in 2015. Supporting this argument, the National Co-ordinator, Women for Better Nigeria, Elizabeth Emmanuel, told BusinessDay on telephone that “what Nigerians need now is someone who can deliver on his electoral promises” and not someone from a particular tribe. According to her, tribal issues had played out in the past but did not work, “2019 general elections will be a different game.”
It is in this light that the internal unconstitutional zoning arrangements may not likely to impact on the forthcoming elections. As it stands, the two main political parties, APC and PDP, have zoned their candidacy to the North. Already, the APC’s representative, Buhari, is from the North. The main contenders from PDP are from the North. By analysts’ calculations, it is only the candidate from the North that can effectively challenge Buhari in the 2019 polls. That is why analysts feel contenders from North Central and South may not get the ticket to fly PDP’s flag in 2019 presidential elections. However, the political games and calculations could change if Buhari decides not to seek re-election. Such decision will see more hidden players who do not want to play with Buhari emerging from different political zones, which will disrupt the zoning arrangement.
In the event of underplaying tribal sentiments in the forthcoming elections, it will be a major shift from the political history of Nigeria. However, some analysts still think because Nigeria has the history of tribal sentiments during elections, 2019 elections will not be deferent. In an interview with a print media, Tunde Salman of Good Governance Team, thinks tribal factor will still play a major influence in determining the voting pattern of the electorate, come February 2019.
- Religion/Islamization of Nigeria
Since the return to democracy in 1999, Nigerians have always been concerned about the religious faith of their president. However, the fear from some quarters that this administration is driving towards islamising the country had not been a major concern in the past democracies. Nigeria is a highly religious sensitive country such that every religious statement, body language, utterance is either erroneously or intentionally calculated to mean driving the country towards one particular religion. So, the fear of “islamisation agenda by discerning Christian voters will impact on the 2019 elections”, said Akinyele, adding that “presidential candidates need to disabuse the minds of the electorate by demonstrating that they’re not religious fanatics.”
Earlier, in a landmark 1993 presidential election, Nigerians did not consider the issue of religion, perhaps because the opportunity to do so was not available. Even though Bashir Tofa of National Republican Convention (NRC) presented Sylvester Ugoh, a Christian Igbo, as his running mate, Nigerians nonetheless voted massively for MKO Abiola and Babagana Kingibe, a muslim-muslim ticket, from the Social Democratic Party (SDP). “Religious consciousness wasn’t there then, Nigerians wanted a better Nigeria. Politicians didn’t use religion to kill and divide Nigerians then,” said Akinyele while blaming politicians for using religious sentiment to divide Nigerians.
However, in 1999 elections, Olusegun Obasanjo won on the combination of Christian-Muslim ticket. In 2007, late Umaru Yar’Adua won on the combination of Muslim-Christian ticket, as he chose Goodluck Jonathan as his running mate. The same trend followed in 2009 when Jonathan, a Christian, took Namadi Sambo, a Muslim, as his vice president. That combination worked out.
Prior to 2015 elections, Buhari wanted a shift from the status quo by feeding in a muslim-muslim ticket for the presidential elections. Reports have it that Buhari had suggested Adams Oshiomhole as his running mate. The party chieftains quickly cautioned against such move. “That would have been disastrous for the party and slim down APC’s chances from winning the election”, observed Ojo.
For 2019 elections, Nigerians are expected to vote along religious line, as religion is still an important key factor in deciding which way the electorate decide. Every aspirant should be aware of this factor and feed in vice presidential candidate from the other faith.
- Youth
With the increasing awareness of youth education and their role in polity, youth will definitely be one of the factors that will determine the outcome of the 2019 elections. With more youth rooming the streets without jobs, politicians know that they can always woo the youth to themselves by promising jobs. With the advent of the social media, youth now have good platform to air their views and their grievances of the ills in the governance. Politicians are also everywhere on social media, meeting and interacting with the youth.
Unlike in the past where youth were only relevant during elections and dumped afterwards, Akinyele said “youth are beginning to be awake and taken care of their future, resisting temptations of being used and dumped by politicians,” recognising however that “more youth still need to be educated to take their rightful places in the society.”
According to Mahmood Yakubu, Independence National Electoral Commission (INEC) chairman, the commission registered a significant number of youth during the 2018 voters’ registration exercise, which will have a lot of impact on the outcome of the 2019 general election, as did during the 2015 elections. The INEC boss who projected that “by the time we go into the 2019 general elections, we would have had over 80 million voters,” believes youth will have huge significant impact on the elections. “From what we are seeing so far (in the just concluded voters’ registration exercise), 2019 is going to be the year of the youth. Quite a large number of those that have registered to vote are the youth, meaning the young boys and girls between the ages of 18 and 35. When we did the analysis of the 2015 presidential election results, the youth also played a very important role,” the INEC boss said.
- Defection tonic and godfatherism
In Nigeria, many people still cast their votes on sentiment, sympathy and respect for a party candidate or a senior party member. Because of this, any respected godfather who defects to another party will go with his supporters, who will vote according to the dictates and body languages of such godfather. Such factor came into play in 2015 elections when the former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, left the ruling PDP to the then opposition party, APC. To demonstrate his total displeasure for the PDP, Obasanjo tore his party membership card. This body language went a long way to influence the voting behaviour of Obasanjo’s supporters.
In relation to this, some sections of the country have high regards for their elders and would vote according to the dictates of their elders. Again, this played out in 2015 general elections when Bola Tinubu, a respected Yoruba leader, apparently told Yoruba people where and how to cast their votes.
Two analysts, Matthew T. Page and Sola Tayo, from The Royal Institute of International Affairs, commonly known as Chatham House, London, UK, say Buhari’s performance in the last six months of his tenure and the ability of the ruling APC party to deal with the wind of defections currently ragging the party will have a lot of influence on 2019 elections. “A few key factors will determine whether the APC will repeat its 2015 victory or risk defeat. The first is the degree to which the party either remains united behind Buhari’s candidacy or sees additional high-level defections and a widening of existing factional divisions. The second is the president’s performance in the last six months of his term, and his party’s performance in off-cycle governorship elections,” they said.
- Restructuring
“APC government disappointed Nigerians, they promised us restructuring,” Ojo lamented, observing that “restructuring is not new, those agitating for it now are not the first.”
In the build up to the 2019 general elections, many prominent Nigerians have contributed to the discourse of restructuring the country. Most of the politicians calling for restructuring are from the opposition party, the PDP. Former vice president and PDP 2019 presidential hopeful, Abubakar Atiku, has been very strong on his restructuring messages. He thinks what Nigeria needs most at this time is restructuring and he hopes to woo voters with his restructuring messages. According to him, providing jobs for the youth and developing Nigeria, the country must be restructured because “greater autonomy, power and resources for states and local authorities will give the federating units greater freedom and flexibility to address local issues, priorities and peculiarities,” Atiku said.
Another strong mind who dreams of wooing voters through restructuring campaign is the former senate president and also PDP presidential hopeful, David Mark. He believes that restructuring Nigeria is the sure way to revive the country. He said: “I am a pan-Nigerian, I believe in the sanctity of our unity. Anything that will unite and prosper Nigeria would be my best interest and concern. I believe restructuring is the way to go.” He added, “for once, Nigerians across the geo-political zones and various ethnic nationalities are of the consensus and indeed united on the subject, restructuring.”
Although the nation’s vice president, Osinbajo, has been accused of not being consistent with his argument on restructuring, he nonetheless contributed to the restructuring discourse. Coming from the ruling APC whose ideology seems not to buy the restructuring mantra mostly coming from the PDP, the vice president’s calls for restructuring may fall into the deaf ears of APC and therefore not likely to use it to woo voters.
Already, Nasir el-Rufai, governor of Kaduna state, has called the agitators of restructuring “opportunists.” He said: “a lot of the talk about restructuring is political opportunism and irresponsibility in my opinion. It is popular and people that have presidential aspiration think it is a platform on which they can exploit,” noting that APC does not believe in 2014 confab, which equally talks about restructuring. Likewise, Osinbajo has discredited restructuring agitators calling them political job seekers. In his words, “those calling for restructuring are looking for appointment. When they say they want restructuring, what they want is appointment. Some people told us Nigeria is a ‘geographical expression’ although it was not even original to them.”
Giving credence to the call for restructuring as a way of moving Nigeria forward are the leaders of Southern regions and the Middle Belt led by their leaders, Edwin Clark of Pan Niger Delta, John Nwodo of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Ayo Adebanjo and Dan Suleiman of Middle Belt Forum. In this regard, canvassing for restructuring will likely affect these regions’ voting pattern.
Feelers from some quarters sound as if the only determinant for choosing the next president is the issue of restructuring. Any candidate who is able to articulate his position properly on restructuring will likely to score more points. “Restructuring is a big concern for the Southerners and North Central. [Only] the North West and North East would be more interested in the candidate that would preserve the status quo.” Akinyele observed.
- Vote selling and buying
In the past, politicians were known to offer cash and material rewards to electorate in exchange for their votes. Once voters collected money, they were compelled to vote in certain pattern according to the dictates of the vote buyers.
Recently in the Ekiti elections, reports from the state suggest that voters sold their votes to some politicians compelling the voters to vote for certain candidate. The same event is likely to dominate Osun elections as some politicians have already ‘empowering’ voters with money, rice and even with cup of garri.
The selling of votes is orchestrated by the insistent poverty in the land. Ojo warns voters not to sell away their future and their children’s future with a token and cups of rice, as the politicians who offer such inducement either borrowed the money or sold their properties for electioneering, which obviously would be recuperated upon assuming of office. However, Page and Tayo think that the 2019 polls “in all respects, will follow the pattern of other recent national polls.”
- Rule of law
Unlike the face of Nigeria during the military era when the rule of law did not matter to the junta, many Nigerians are now conscious of their rights under democracy. The principles of the rule of law will contribute to the voting pattern of Nigerians, especially among the elite who are conscious of the principles of the rule of law and how it operates. Akinyele, a lawyer, said one way to kill democracy and make people to live in fear is to sweep the rule of law under the carpet. “Rule of law is the fundamental of democracy, and to ignore it is to kill democracy,” he said.
No government will hope to be popular if it continues to trample upon people’s rights, ignores court rulings, keeps citizens in custody without trial and rates security issues above and beyond the rule of law. Nothing annoys lawyers more than ignoring the rule of law, and such, will not support any government that ignores the rule of law.
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