WHY GEN. BUHARI SHOULD IGNORE VOTING PATTERN AND CARRY ALL REGION ALONG.
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In life today, many things comes with a pattern. in fashion designing, designers follow a pattern, also shapes in mathematics comes with a pattern, same way with many other variables in life's endeavours.

Also in voting, there is a clearly and a visible pattern that electorates follow knowingly or unknowingly in determining who to vote for and who not to vote for. In the United State of America, a clearly visible voting pattern is the tagging of states into Blue and Red states. Red states are those states whose residents predominantly vote for the Republican Party while the Blue state are state that the residence predominantly vote for the Democratic Party as presidential candidates.

Core "Red States" that have not voted the Democrat party for years are Virginia , North Carolina , Indiana and even when a Democrat Barack Obama won the last elections in U.S he did not win in these states.

Voting pattern have a great impact on the outcome of elections but there are some certain factors that determines voting pattern by electorates. In the United States for instance the major factors that influences their voting pattern are " Race, Ideology i.e liberal, moderates and conservative, also party influences voting pattern.

Coming now to the Nigerian polity, the major influencer to the voting pattern here is Tribe, Party affiliation and Religion, others variables are minimal.

Before the commencement of the March 28th Presidential election, political analyst drew conclusion from the already established voting pattern of the Nigerian electorates, stating states that the APC will win, states that the PDP will win and also states that the battle will be stiff.

It was analysed that the APC will win massively in the North West and North East while the North Central was placed as a stiff battle for both Parties. Then PDP will win in the South East and South South. Then also it was analysed that the battle for the South West will also be stiff bearing in mind that President Jonathan won in all states of the South West except Lagos in the 2011 Presidential election. But the Political Analyst got it all wrong this time around, APC won in all states of the South West except Ekiti State where the Executive Governor Ayo Fayose stood his ground against all odd and delivered his party the People's Democratic Party.

The All Progressive Congress Presidential candidate and now the President elect on his own will never have won a Presidential election in Nigeria, that was why after three attempt with different parties he could not cling it, then came the merger on the 6th of February 2013 an alliance of Nigeria's three biggest opposition parties – the Action Congress of
Nigeria (ACN), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) to take on the People's Democratic Party.

In the just concluded Presidential pools, the All Progressive Congress (APC) came up with a professional, calculative and distinct political plan, which is :
* Campaign in all geo political zones of the federation
* Gather massive votes from the strong hold of Gen. Buhari
* Gather massive votes from the strong hold of the defunct ACN which is the South West.
* Make sure PDP did not gather the same amount of vote they did from the South East in the 2011 Presidential election.

The above plan of the APC worked like wild fire and as a result today, they are the ruling party while PDP is the opposition. Power have switch hands.

The master plan of the APC was carefully dispensed to all their unit agents and they all understood their roles especially the ones in the South East.

On March 28 the day of the Presidential election, the APC agent posted to the unit I served as a Presiding Officer was Mr Chijioke. A native of the village where the unit was located. Mr Chijioke was fully aware that his people preferred President Jonathan to Gen Buhari but he came that day prepared to do his job, a job that required strong determination to successfully carry out but still Mr Chijioke did his job so well that I think he should be rewarded specially by the APC. In my unit, they were 755 voters on the register but it was only around 300 that was accredited, and voting commenced then at the end of voting the electorates there started pleading that i allow the people that came back from the North to vote , some said I should give them more Presidential ballot paper to vote their brother (President Jonathan) so that he will win, and from the look on their eyes they meant business, but the APC Agent stood his ground against the will of his own people. They called him betrayal, traitor and all sorts of names but he knew the game plan of his party, the APC and he professionally stuck to it against the will of his people. And clearly from the result of the entire South East in the March 28th Presidential election one would easily say that there were many Mr Chijioke in most of the units that spreads across the region and the result was massively felt.

In 2011, Presidential election, PDP had 4,985,246 votes from South East but in 2015, PDP had 2,464,906. A whooping 2million plus votes gone because of the brilliant game plan of the opposition APC.

It was very clear that either the PDP was very politically clueless or they just wanted to relinquish power to the opposition because there were many things there were suppose to do that there just left to chance and they paid the price for their lackadaisical attitudes. I hope that they will perform their role professionally as opposition to the good of Nigerians, because every balanced Democracy needs a vibrant opposition.

Forging to the topic of this piece, "The voting pattern " I know and you know that the South East preferred a President Jonathan to a Gen. Buhari so also does the camp of Buhari knows this and so also does the people's General himself knows this. But will you say the Igbos hate Gen Buhari? My answer to this is "NO".

During President Jonathan's Administration he knew clearly that he was not the favoured choice of the North East and North West but that did not stop him from carrying out visible federal projects in the North during his Adminstration, and also appointing many Northerners in different positions and also in his cabinet during his 6 years as head of this country.

My friend Cornelius Aguiyi from Anambra, all through the electioneering Brouhaha among followers of the top two political party have always patched his tenth with the people's General Okechukwu Buhari. And so does some selected people from the South East preferred Buhari to Jonathan. And will their dream candidate Gen Buhari neglect their region in his administration because of the voting pattern from that region? I don't think so.

Deep within, I know our President Elect loves the Igbos that's why he accepted the name Okechukwu given to him in Aba.

I strongly used this medium to call on our amiable President elect Gen Muhammadu Buhari Okechukwu to neglect the clearly and visible voting pattern of the South East in the just concluded Presidential election and be the father of the Federal Republic of Nigeria come May 29.

Esomnofu Arinze writes from Oba in Idemili South Local Government of Anambra State.

Always looking for shortcuts after ganging up against d general..now they bring up diff reasons why they shouldn't be left out!