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Akinwande Soji-Ojo
The declaration of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the president-elect in the early hours of Wednesday by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), marked the end of the keenly contested election held last Saturday.
INEC Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, who declared the results, said Tinubu polled 8,794,726 votes to defeat his closest rival, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who scored 6,984,520 votes. Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) got 6,101,533 votes to place third while Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) came fourth with 1,496,687 votes.
Following the announcement, Newspeakonline examines the four factors that handed Tinubu victory.
Ethnicity
In the just concluded presidential election, ethnicity was a major yardstick that propelled the former Lagos State governor to victory. Tinubu rode on his now famous ‘emilokan’ (it is my turn) slogan to rally support from the Yoruba people in the South West, majority of who believe that a Tinubu presidency is a collective ethnic cause.
As such, Tinubu got overwhelming votes from the region. Although he lost in Osun and his home state of Lagos, he was able to secure a large number of votes in the region, resulting in a wide defeat for Atiku and Obi respectively. Tinubu defeated his closest challenger, Atiku, with over a million votes in the region.
The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) alluded to this factor in its post-election report released on Tuesday.
“Early voting patterns suggest that ethnic identity may have been a key determinant in voters’ choices in this election. However, the result from Lagos, where Obi was able edge Tinubu offers some optimism for a generational change independent of the ethnic cleavages that have historically dominated Nigerian politics,” CDD said.
Muslim-Muslim ticket
Controversy trailed Tinubu’s choice of Senator Kashim Shettima as his running mate as many, especially those from other religious groups, kicked against the Muslim-Muslim ticket in a secular society like Nigeria.
But Tinubu stuck to his guns, justifying his choice in what he and his party described as a strategy to make inroads into the core North and gain acceptance from the Muslim voting bloc in the region. The strategy, to a large extent, worked in Tinubu’s favour as he received millions of votes in the North West, North East and North Central.
G5 governors
Many political analysts have argued that the crisis between the PDP leadership and five aggrieved governors from the party led by Nyesom Wike of Rivers State constituted a major distraction to the PDP and its candidate, Atiku. The governors – Wike, Samuel Ortom (Benue), Seyi Makinde (Oyo), Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi (Enugu) and Okezie Ikpeazu (Abia) – were at loggerheads with the party, demanding the resignation of its national chairman, Dr Iyorchia Ayu. They anchored their grievance on perceived injustice in the party, claiming that Atiku and Ayu are from the North.
Although Atiku and PDP later put the crisis behind them, its effect was telling in the results of the presidential election as Tinubu won in Rivers, Oyo and Benue States. Obi also recorded huge votes in Abia and Enugu States.
Ultimately, Atiku failed to win in any of the states governed by the G5 governors.
Obi and Kwankwaso’s defection
In the run-up to the presidential primaries, a clash of interest loomed large in PDP. Obi, Kwankwaso and Atiku could not come to terms as each of them wanted to emerge the standard bearer of the party. This eventually snowballed into defections and the resultant depletion of votes that should have gone to PDP.
Anambra State governor, Prof Charles Soludo, explained this scenario in an article he wrote in 2022.
“Peter Obi is taking votes away mostly from PDP. Indeed, if I were Tinubu, I would even give Peter Obi money as someone heading a department of his campaign because Obi is making Tinubu’s pathway to victory easier by indirectly pulling down PDP,” Soludo said.
Going by the final results INEC declared, some would argue that Tinubu and the ruling APC would have suffered an humiliating defeat if Obi and Kwankwaso had not defected from opposition PDP to LP and NNPP respectively.