₦airaland Forum

· 8 states including Bauchi, Gombe, Kano, Katsina, Niger, Sokoto, Yobe and Zamfara have always voted in favour of President Buhari from the 2003 elections and are extremely likely to back him again in the 2019 elections.

· Borno, Kaduna and Kebbi will likely go to President Buhari. He has won and lost in these states but all three states backed him in the last general elections.

· 16 states including Abia, Abuja FCT, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Ebonyi, Edo, Ekiti, Enugu, Imo, Nasarawa, Plateau, Rivers and Taraba have never voted in favour of President Buhari and instead have backed the PDP in all the presidential elections held since 1999.

· Adamawa backed President Buhari in the last two presidential elections but being the home state of Atiku, we presume he will use that to his advantage and hence assigned him as a winner in that state

· This now leaves 8 states, namely Benue, Kogi, Kwara, Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Osun and Oyo where the decision could swing either way.

Benue, Kogi and Kwara are the only states in the country that have backed the winners in all the presidential elections held since 1999. They had traditionally backed PDP presidential candidates but swung their support behind President Buhari in the last elections. Also the margins of wins here tend to be a lot smaller as compared to other parts of the country, so elections here are always tightly contested. Hence, whoever wins in these 3 states in the next general election should see it as a good omen.

Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Osun and Oyo are about the only states in Nigeria that have fallen in and out of love with PDP Presidential candidates. While they all backed President Buhari in the last elections, the volatility of their support over the years makes it hard to predict who they will support come the 2019 elections.

https://medium.com/kingmakers/the-eight-states-to-decide-a-buhari-versus-atiku-contest-at-the-2019-presidential-elections-fa6d67bf0f0f

There is still a lot of discussion going on regarding the comments about Nigerians youths made by President Buhari at the Commonwealth Business Forum in London on the 18th of April, 2018. There has been widespread condemnation of the remarks both in local and international media, plus an outcry from the Nigerian youths who took to social media to vent their frustration to what they took as a slight to their endearing enterprise.

The uproar will not doubt have pleased two men, Fela Durotoye and Omoyele Sowore, both of whom have expressed their 2019 presidential aspirations and are also counting on Nigerian youths to back their campaigns to sweep them into office. Fela Durotoye is unarguably among Nigeria’s leading motivational speakers with a clientele base ranging from tier one banks to some of the country’s leading oil companies. While Omoyele Sowore is the enigmatic publisher of Sahara Reporters who has brandished his antecedents as past student union leader, pro-democracy and anti-corruption crusader as part of his campaign message.

https://medium.com/kingmakers/durotoye-sowores-possible-path-to-aso-rock-3b1c9784d6bd

Shows that those living in the Northern region of Nigeria are more diverse in their thinking when it comes to who they want to vote for.

TheBureau:
The 2015 Presidential Elections was the closest we have ever had since 1999, with President Buhari having a winning margin of just 9% in the total number of votes cast over President Jonathan. The previous elections had much larger winning margins – 1999 (25.5%), 2003 (29.8%) and 2011(26.9%).

Kingmakers decided to have a look at the trend of the winning margins across all the states in the country to find out which states tend to have close races when it comes to the Presidential Elections.

We did this by averaging the winning margins from the results of the 1999, 2003, 2011 and 2015 elections. The data from the 2007 was not included as that election is generally considered flawed by local and international observers.

The results showed that as expected, the South South and the South East had the least competitive states recording margins of over 80% in some cases while the most competitive states were in the North Central (Middle Zone) with Abuja FCT being the most competitive place in the country. The middle states have thus earned their title as swing states because of their competitiveness, the results can swing in any candidate’s favour.

It must also be noted that no Nigerian President has been elected without winning three states Benue, Kogi and Kwara, all who incidentally happen to be in the Middle Belt.

The data also went against the grain that Northerners generally tend to always solidly back their own candidates as the winning margins were slimmer than those observed in the southern part of the country. Kaduna(27%) and Gombe (28%) stood out in particular recording winning margins lower than any seen in the South East, South South and South West despite being seen as core Northern states.

The 2015 Presidential Elections was the closest we have ever had since 1999, with President Buhari having a winning margin of just 9% in the total number of votes cast over President Jonathan. The previous elections had much larger winning margins – 1999 (25.5%), 2003 (29.8%) and 2011(26.9%).

Kingmakers decided to have a look at the trend of the winning margins across all the states in the country to find out which states tend to have close races when it comes to the Presidential Elections.

We did this by averaging the winning margins from the results of the 1999, 2003, 2011 and 2015 elections. The data from the 2007 was not included as that election is generally considered flawed by local and international observers.

The results showed that as expected, the South South and the South East had the least competitive states recording margins of over 80% in some cases while the most competitive states were in the North Central (Middle Zone) with Abuja FCT being the most competitive place in the country. The middle states have thus earned their title as swing states because of their competitiveness, the results can swing in any candidate’s favour.

It must also be noted that no Nigerian President has been elected without winning three states Benue, Kogi and Kwara, all who incidentally happen to be in the Middle Belt.

The data also went against the grain that Northerners generally tend to always solidly back their own candidates as the winning margins were slimmer than those observed in the southern part of the country. Kaduna(27%) and Gombe (28%) stood out in particular recording winning margins lower than any seen in the South East, South South and South West despite being seen as core Northern states.

These eight states, Bauchi, Gombe, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Sokoto, Yobe and Zamfara have consistently back President Buhari in all the presidential elections, with the exception of the that conducted in 2007 which many considered to be highly flawed.

Together, the number of PVC accredited voted in those states alone amount to nearly 8 million, a third of the nation’s total, handing the President an advantage going in the 2019 elections, if the trend should continue.

8 million is also equivalent to the total number of PVCs issued out in all the South East, South South and South West, as well as half of that given out in the North Central, North East and North West.

There has been an on-going discussion regarding the different rates across the country in which registered voters have applied for and successfully picked up their permanent voters cards (PVCs). At Kingmakers, we took a look at the numbers released by INEC as regards PVCs, and found some interesting statistics.

In terms of rate collection there was a national average of 47%. Rivers had the highest collection rate as over 70% of its registered voters picked up their PVC, as compared to Lagos, which had the lowest at 29% despite having the largest number of registered voters in the country at over 5 million.

There was a difference of 2% in the rate of collection between Northern states (48%) and Southern states (46%). Across the geopolitical zones, the South South topped the list at 58%, with the North West (56%), North East (45.2%), North Central (43.7%), South East (40.5%) and the South West (39.5%) trailing behind.

In terms of sheer numbers, the states in the North West zone will be of considerable interest to any presidential aspirant as its 8 million PVC carrying voters is at par with the total number of that of the whole the Southern states (South East – 1.4 million, South South – 2.4 million, and South West – 4.4 million).

In fact the when the North West numbers are combined with the North Central (3.9 million) and North East (3.5 million), the 15.5 million strong voters are an advantage to the present incumbent, President Buhari, who swept all three zones, which gave him a huge margin over his opponents in the popular vote.

However it is important to note that the popular vote is one of the requirement needed to win the presidential election, with the other being having received at least a quarter of the votes at each of at least two-thirds of the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).