Goodluck Jonathan is currently the
only presidential candidate in
Nigeria. The others are nowhere to be
found.
————————-
I have been a student of elections for
42 years. I obtained my first degree in
History and Politics from Warwick
University, Coventry, England in 1975.
In my second year at Warwick, I
obtained a scholarship to visit the
United States to study the
circumstances behind the 1973
election of Maynard Jackson as the
first African-American Mayor of
Atlanta, and of a major Southern
metropolis in the United States since
the American Civil War.
Since then, I have been fascinated by
elections. Unfortunately, Nigeria
remained under military rule for an
inordinate length of time. The most
fascinating election I have ever
observed was the first election of
Barack Obama as the first African-
American president of the United
States in 2008. Obama secured the
nomination of the Democratic Party
against the formidable Hilary Clinton;
and he then went on to defeat the
Republican nominee, John McCain, in
the general election.
Anticlimax
Obama’s 2007/2008 election
campaign has since become a
textbook-case of outstanding
political strategizing in the United
States. His superior tactics ensured
that his victory quickly became
inevitable, even against all the odds.
Therefore, some of us were able to
call his nomination as Democratic
Party candidate and election as
president very early; to the
discomfiture of doubting Thomases
who could not imagine a black U.S.
president in their lifetime.
The forthcoming 2015 presidential
election in Nigeria is another election
that has become easy to predict, but
for different reasons. Yes, it is a much
ballyhooed election, especially since
the emergence of the All Progressives
Congress. However, the APC has
turned out to be a newspaper
political party and nothing more. Its
novelty has long died down and a
new harsh and dismal political reality
now confronts it.
As a result, the 2015 election is not
likely to live up to its hype. As a
matter of fact, all the evidence now
indicates the election will be a
cakewalk for the PDP. Goodluck
Jonathan will not only be re-elected
as president, he will be re-elected by
a landslide.
PDP failure
Ordinarily, the forthcoming election
should be a problematic one for
Goodluck Jonathan. After 15 years,
Nigerians are generally fed up with
the PDP. 15 years is more than
enough time to change drastically the
electrical power situation in the
country. But this has yet to happen to
any appreciable degree.
One year is more than sufficient to
make a big impact on the problem of
corruption in Nigeria. Again, this has
not happened in 15 years. The
security situation in the country is
now critical and is likely to get much
worse before it gets better. 219
kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls are still
missing, with only dubious
promissory notes offered by the
president for their imminent rescue.
For these and other reasons, the 2015
presidential elections should be a
difficult one for Goodluck Jonathan.
When the Iranians held American
diplomats hostage under the regime
of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, it led
to the defeat of incumbent President
Jimmy Carter in the United States
presidential elections of 1980.
However, in the case of Nigeria, my
contention is that the re-election of
Jonathan in 2015 is going to be easy.
Jonathan will defeat his APC
challenger convincingly. He is also
likely to obtain the requisite one third
of the votes in virtually every state of
the federation.
Shambolic opposition
The main reason for this conclusion
is that Jonathan is facing a
shambolic APC opposition that does
not seem to have a clue about what it
takes to run an effective national
presidential campaign. This explains
why, till date, Jonathan is still the
only candidate running for the
presidency. Although he has yet to
declare his candidacy officially, even
a three year-old Nigerian child knows
he will be the PDP candidate.
However, his APC challenger remains
unknown. It is incredible that barely
six months to an election where the
opposition hopes to unseat a
president who has been in office for
nearly six years, the APC bigwigs
have yet to agree on who will be his
challenger. Moreover, the INEC
timetable favours the PDP as
opposed to the APC. By decreeing
that the party primaries for the
presidential elections must wait until
October 2014, and the campaigns
must not start until November, INEC
has created a situation where
Jonathan has become virtually the
only candidate. Just by being
president, he is already campaigning
and running for re-election.
This means there is now insufficient
time to socialize Nigerians about the
APC candidate. The only opposition
candidates that need no national
introduction are Buhari, Atiku and
Tinubu. But the candidacies of these
men are dead in the water. Buhari
and Atiku have contested the
presidency in the past and failed
woefully. Should they try again, they
will fail again.
Tinubu’s candidacy is a nonstarter,
given Obasanjo’s recent eight-year
representation of the South-West in
Aso Rock. This leaves the APC with
no candidates of note to field against
Jonathan. The only realistic APC
candidate at this eleventh hour can
only be a national nonentity; and
among the non-entities, I include
men like Rabiu Kwankwaso of Kano.
An APC nonentity cannot prevail
against Jonathan and the PDP
juggernaut.
Shallow party-structure
The only party that can field a
nonentity and still win the
presidential election in Nigeria is the
PDP. This is because it is the only
longstanding national party in
Nigeria and, unlike the APC; it has
been in power for 15 years. That
means the PDP has firm roots
nationwide. But the APC only has
roots in the South-West, and even
there, this is beginning to unravel; as
the recent elections in Ondo and Ekiti
indicate.
Buhari is very popular in the North,
but he is hopeless at building party-
structures. Virtually every party
Buhari built imploded. Buhari is a
one-man party. This is not very
useful in an election where Buhari
himself is not a viable APC
presidential candidate. The APC has
excited itself as a result of the
defection of some five PDP governors
to its ranks. But this is also not very
useful because these governors could
not defect with their PDP party-
structures.
The defector PDP governors have
brought a great deal of publicity to
the APC. But whatever assets they
had to offer has long fizzled out. A
testament to this is the ease with
which Murtala Nyako was impeached
as governor of Adamawa State. With
all the noise Nyako was making, it
was easy to forget that he had no
roots on the ground. It was all smoke
and mirrors that did not go beyond
newspaper headlines.
No game-plan
Where then is the APC taking the fight
to the formidable PDP? Literally
nowhere at the moment! The APC
peaked too early. As a matter of fact,
it is the party now in retreat virtually
everywhere. It lost to the PDP in Ondo
and Ekiti, part of its South-West
stronghold. Nyako of Adamawa has
been impeached. Al-Makura of
Nasarawa is on the ropes. Other APC
governors are under threat of
impeachment, but no such threat
hangs over the head of any PDP
governor.
The defection of the PDP governors to
the APC has turned out to be a
blessing in initial disguise. From the
point of view of political strategy, it
would have been better if they had
remained in the PDP as APC wolves
in PDP clothing. This might have
been useful in undermining
Jonathan’s candidacy. Indeed, they
could have challenged him for the
PDP ticket, not with any hope of
winning, but just in order to dent his
strength and create some havoc
within the PDP.
However, by defecting, the rebel PDP
governors ushered in peace to the
PDP. Simultaneously, they exported
their wahala to the APC where they
are now at loggerheads with the old
APC brigade in bitter internal
struggles for supremacy. For a party
that has yet to find its feet, this has
been disastrous. Indeed, the
defections are now going in the other
direction, from APC to PDP; as
happened recently in Zamfara. Even
the defector PDP governors are likely
to lose their seats in the near-future,
because defection is proscribed in the
Constitution and the PDP has taken
the matter to court.
So what exactly is the APC game-
plan? Nothing much! All we have at
the moment is Lai Mohammed
coming up incessantly with
bombastic broadsides against
Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP in
the newspapers. If they really believe
this is the way to unseat a six-year-
old president and dislodge a fifteen-
year-old government, then the APC
bigwigs need to enroll in NIPSS, Kuru
for courses in “Nigerian Elections
101.”
Boko Haram factor
And then there is the Boko Haram
insurgency and the albatross of the
kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls. The
strategy of the terrorists is that every
explosion is supposed to discredit the
Jonathan administration. In spite of
its hatred for the entire Nigerian
political establishment, there is no
doubt that the Boko Haram would
prefer a Northern Muslim president to
Southern Christian Goodluck
Jonathan.
For this very reason, a vote for APC is
now more likely to be construed as a
vote of surrender to the insurgency.
While Nigerians are very concerned
about the security situation in the
country, they are even less likely to
succumb to its incorrigible purpose.
The indiscriminate bombing of
innocent Nigerians for the sake of an
agenda that is alien to Nigeria cannot
but rally people nationwide behind
President Goodluck Jonathan.
A few days ago, Vanguard published
a Special Report captioned: “Six
Months to Elections, Where Are the
Presidential Aspirants?” The answer
is that Goodluck Jonathan is currently
the only presidential candidate in
Nigeria. The others are nowhere to be
found.
The APC is a useful counterpoise to
the PDP in the Nigerian political
equation. But it is only likely to pose
a strong challenge to the ruling party
in 2019, when there will be no
incumbent president to contend with,
and after it might have sorted out its
internal contradictions and developed
firm roots nationwide. But as it is
today, the APC is not even likely to
survive impending defeat in 2015.

www.nigeria.varpal.com/news/femi-aribisala-jonathan-will-win-the-2015-elections-by-a-landslide

femi even if you obtained your bsc, masters, phd doctorate and any other certificate from havard university, president goodluck ebola jonadunce's tenure will end in may 2015 by God's grace........ Nigeria will have a new competent president in 2015

we are all tired of inhaling carbondioxide which jonathanians call "fresh air"

Of course!,that's no news.what i want to know is actual population that would be left in the country when he's done with his ambition.

we know

kastonkastrol: femi even if you obtained your bsc, masters, phd doctorate and any other certificate from havard university, president goodluck ebola jonadunce's tenure will end in may 2015 by God's grace........ Nigeria will have a new competent president in 2015

we are all tired of inhaling carbondioxide which jonathanians call "fresh air"

your father nyach

The most stupid article I have ever read in my life!

Man you are right indeed!! Gej till 2019.

My own is; let the man dat cap fits wear it. Be it Jonathan or Buhari, let there be peace and unity in Nigeria and let dis bombings and killings be stopped.

My own is; let the man dat d cap fits wear it. Be it Jonathan or Buhari, let there be peace and unity in Nigeria and let dis bombings and killings be stopped.

kastonkastrol: femi even if you obtained your bsc, masters, phd doctorate and any other certificate from havard university, president goodluck ebola jonadunce's tenure will end in may 2015 by God's grace........ Nigeria will have a new competent president in 2015

we are all tired of inhaling carbondioxide which jonathanians call "fresh air"

Who are the WE







Gej is the best man for the job. tested and trusted!!!

A predictable Aribisala could not have said otherwise. But he'll be proven wrong in a few months time.

I can bet my life on that.

GEJ till 2019 = BOMB TILL 2019
Hand writing is on the wall. vote wisely
say no to incompetency inactions curruptions
say yes to progressiveness vision discipline

To all nigerians, I wish u GOODLUCK