Having closely followed the permutations of various neutral reputable political pundits, I have summarised their projections thus:
1. It is NOT a 4-horse race. Rather, it is a three-way race between Tinubu, Atiku and Obi.
2. The race is being run on a level-playing ground, i.e no federal might or incumbency advantage at play.
3. Tribe, Religion and party loyalty are factors, even among urban educated voters.
4. In Nigeria, apathy isn't a lack of interest, it is simply a person recognizing his preferred (tribal, religious or party) candidate is just too bad a choice to vote for, but too biased to vote a better candidate not of his tribal/religious/party persuasion. So the person would rather abstain.
5. In the whole dynamics, there are few whose choice of candidate is not influenced by tribe, religion or party loyalty... But this number is highly insignificant.
6. Poverty, insecurity, hardship etc does little or nothing in swaying majority of Nigerians from voting along tribal, religious or party lines.
7. In terms of "strongholds", no one candidate has a definitive hold on any sizeable swathe large enough to guarantee victory: while Obi has the southeast and largely the southsouth, Tinubu has largely the southwest and a chunk of the north and Atiku, just like Tinubu, has a chunk of the north and some residual parts of the south.
8. Why the frontrunners are popular in their strongholds is largely on account of tribal, religious and party loyalties. For instance, while Atiku is banking on heavily on tribal & religious sentiments to garner votes from the core North and party loyalty to PDP to get votes down south, Tinubu is banking on party loyalty to get votes from the core north and tribal loyalties from his base in the southwest.
For Obi, tribal/religious considerations are plausible causes of support for him in the southeast & southsouth.
9. If the southeast, southsouth and a substantial part of lagos turns up for Obi as predicted, and the north splits almost evenly between Atiku and Tinubu, the election may go to a run-off.
10. For failing to penetrate the core north, Obi's only path to victory lies in the run off. His major disadvantage lies in not having the party loyalty card, which the other two can rely on in areas tribal/religious demographics don't favour them.
11. If the core north tilts heavily towards either Tinubu or Atiku, that person wins on first ballot..provided they get their anticipated southern votes...
12. If the election goes to a run-off, the third candidate that has to drop off automatically becomes the kingmaker... This may favour Atiku as both Tinubu and Obi will support him over the other.
But if Atiku is the Kingmaker, he may surprisingly support Tinubu over Obi, due to masked Igbophobia or walk the talk that he is the fastest path to an Igbo presidency

In all, the elections could spring some major surprises.

Structure,Boyz and networking that's what will determine the winner!!!