Some Nigerian amateur numerologists, who study numbers to project the future, say: In Nigeria’s Fourth Republic, Muhammadu Buhari has emerged fourth President, after his fourth attempt. That his political party emerged, in four phases, first as the Alliance for Democracy — powered by the Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, and some civil society groups — from whence the Action Congress was lopped off, expanded to the Action Congress of Nigeria, before merging with others to form the All Progressives Congress.

In the election of March 28, Buhari and President Goodluck Jonathan, each scored at least one-quarter of votes in 28 states. If you add each of Buhari’s 15,424,921 votes (1+5+4+2+4+9+2+1) and Jonathan’s 12,853,162 (1+2+8+5+3+1+6+2), each gives a sum of 28. If you divide 28 by 4, the answer, seven, is the number of perfection. Buhari is the fifth Nigerian military Head of State; he will be the 10th serving or retired military helmsman of the country.

Now that Nigerians have chosen change over staying the course, the following will be a mere speculative discourse. But certainly, the prognostication by a former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Vincent Ogbulafor, that the PDP would rule the country for an unbroken stretch of 60 years did not come to pass after all. The APC saw to that.

After the hate campaigns that assassinated the characters of some APC personalities, like Buhari, his running mate, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, and Bola Tinubu, it would be interesting to see how a re-elected President Jonathan and the PDP would assuage frayed nerves. The ethnic and religious hand played by the PDP was appalling and indecent — and it reflected in the voting pattern.

The electorate voted largely along ethnic and religious lines: The entire South-South, South-East, and the Christian segment of the North-Central (except Benue) voted en masse for the PDP. Two of the House of Representatives seats won by Lagos State PDP came from constituencies with high concentration of people of Igbo extraction.

The entire North-East, North-West, most of South-West, and predominantly Yoruba and Muslim Kwara and Kogi states of the North-Central zone, voted the APC. This voting pattern would likely raise the voice of ethnic and religious jingoists a few more decibels, and put more obstacles in the way of the hastily convened National Conference.

A re-elected President Jonathan would have retained most of the technocrats in his government, but brought in a new set of politicos. Because he would likely not declare his assets, that would be a signal for his men to continue to decimate the public treasury. His new government will certainly change the top echelons of the military.

But the season of impunity would have continued. Sixteen or a lesser number of members would still dominate the Nigerian Governors’ Forum. Because the President didn’t appear to be willing to check anything or anybody, public office holders would ride even more roughshod on the citizens. The APC may unravel as politicians jump ship, to the PDP, for political and economic survival. The opposition would have been completely decimated, and only the military would be a credible opposition to a rampaging government. “Tufiakwa,’ God forbid!

The following assessment by the PDP stalwart, Femi Fani-Kayode, shows Jonathan as “a President who does not understand the meaning of the word, class or honesty, and who breaks his own words consistently… who has abdicated his responsibility, destroyed his own political party, divided his own country, alienated his own friends, humiliated his own people, brought ridicule to his own faith, cowers before his own officials, betrayed his own governors, scorns the international community, and breaks his solemn oath to protect and defend the Nigerian people…”

Jonathan’s acts of engaging ethnic militias to secure oil pipelines appear like employing cats to watch over a bowl of meat: A further disregard to the military, which he politicized. General Olusegun Obasanjo would have been put in a permanent condition of “Shut up!” Buhari, whose political career would have been eclipsed, would have finally retired to the company of his grandchildren in Daura. Tinubu and his political family would have gone on exile or returned to the NADECO-like trenches.

If Jonathan’s PDP, that seemed to have colonised Nigeria, continued its intransigence against the people, one would have borrowed the words of caution by Robert Delavignette, a former French Colonial Officer in Algeria: “The most serious problem is not the atrocities (committed by the French against Algerians), but that as a result of that, the state (was) engaged in a process of self-destruction. What we (witnessed) in Algeria is nothing short of the disintegration of the state; it is a gangrene which threatens France itself.”

Though Jonathan would kowtow to the West’s demand to allow the private sector to run the generation and distribution of electricity, his indulgent nature would not guarantee availability of electricity-and of petroleum products. His boast to upgrade the traditional hydro and gas sources of electricity, and introduce wind, solar, coal, and nuclear power plants would have come to nought. You can see that the telecommunications companies deliver more music than talk to Nigerians.

There is palpable fear that the country has gone broke, and the state is not going to be able to provide the basic amenities for the people, especially now that both the price and the quantity of petroleum that Nigeria sells have tanked. The foreign reserves and the Excess Crude Oil funds have been severely depleted. The Federal Government will continue to borrow through Treasury Bills, and Eurobonds, to meet short-term expenditure.

The austerity measures and stricter tax regime, hinted by Finance Minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, would be implemented; the dilapidated infrastructure would remain so; and the Central Bank of Nigeria would fail to ease bank interest rates, further devalue the naira, and reduce the purchasing power of John Doe on Main Street, Nigeria. The continued plunging oil price should erase anyone’s illusion that the Buhari administration would pull an overnight stunt.

Jonathan’s government may continue with the routing of Boko Haram insurgents or relent, depending on the whim of his advisers. Many have wondered aloud, just where he suddenly picked up the perk to fight the Boko Haram after so many years of the atrocities perpetrated by the group-including the kidnapping of more than 200 young girls in Chibok, Borno State.

Nollywood would have continued to enjoy its honeymoon with Mr. President, even if both parties would be in it for what they could get of the relationship: He, hungry for photo-ops with popular Nollywood actors, who, in turn, are looking for money any which way. The press would still be free to perform its constitutional responsibilities, though restraints would come by way of inducements.

You can bet your lifesaver that Jonathan will not interfere with the courts or the electoral process: He allowed the courts to upturn the elections of some PDP state governors: Olagunsoye Oyinlola of Osun, Segun Agagu of Ondo, and Segun Oni of Ekiti. He also allowed the court’s adjournment of the eligibility case against Buhari to April 24 — long after the presidential election would have been concluded.

Jonathan demonstrated courage and a noble character by his timely concession of victory to Buhari. Some argue that he wanted to avoid his wife from been dragged before the International Criminal Court for her inciting gift of the gab. Whatever, Jonathan saved Nigeria from unnecessary bloodshed.

Nice write up though. As at the time it was predicted that PDP would rule nigeria for nothing less than 5 years, of a truth, they were very much in power but they blew their chance...