A party flag bearer is not a trivial decision. There are a lot of permutations and odds of winning that are factored in before arriving at the decision. When it comes to this advanced political calculus, these politicians are very smart at it, you can bet. Given the complex nature of our country divided along ethnic, religious, political, and other affiliations, I believe the ruling party will not gamble on this, more so, Pres Buhari is not on the ticket this time.

As a keen observer of politics and political calculus, I want to submit that any presidential candidate that is not from a known majority demographics will have a hard time winning the election. This implies that it is natural that you have to be a Muslim from the north or a Christian from the south to have a shot at winning and a running mate from the other end of the country with a different religious background. A Muslim from the South is at a disadvantage because he/she is from a minority group, so is a Christian from the North. To further reduce the odds of winning, the Southern Muslim will have to pick a Christain from the North. The same calculation goes for the Christian from the North who has to pick a Muslim from the South. Minority + Minority = Reduced chances. How about a Southern Muslim picking a Northern Muslim as a running mate or a Northern Christian picking a Southern Christian from the South? We all know that in present-day Nigeria, this is not feasible. This could potentially lead to voter apathy or attrition and can further dim the chances of the candidate.

Consequently, it is my submission, that one of the best candidates for the ruling party still remains the current vice president. Another potentially strong candidate is former Pres Goodluck Jonathan but I do not expect he will depart from the PDP anytime soon. I may be wrong. There are many candidates but only very few have a national appeal. There is a difference between being popular in a state or geo-political zone and being truly a national figure. Most of the candidates fall into the former. I will talk about the odds of winning by other candidates in subsequent posts and will look at possible running mates for the present VP to increase the chances of the odds of winning.

There is a lot of talk about the PDP picking a candidate from the North with the expectation of beating the ruling party's Southern candidate. While that sounds interesting, it is potentially a risky proposition. We will talk about the odds of this proposition in subsequent posts.

Disclaimer: I am not a card-carrying member of any of the political parties.