2015: The Arithmetic of Bad Luck, By Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde Premium Times - 1 day agoCOLUMNS, OPINION Then the conflict between the President and the rebelling governors is of the insoluble genre: they are asking him to “forget” standing for another election in 2015 based on a promise he made in the run up to 2011. Here, carried by his power of incumbency, the President thought he could, as Obasanjo did, break the promise without attracting any harm. It is proving difficult. This time, the governors are not letting it go without a fierce fight. But few presidents can willingly yield to threats even in the face of American might or mass protest. The Presidency, especially to people like Jonathan, is a position of do or die. On the other hand, the New PDP governors are equally stubborn, if not more than the President. Moreover, the conflict has been allowed to ossify so much so that it is impossible for them to back out. On their side are people like Atiku who are already warning them of the dangers of capitulation: “Do not make the mistake of capitulation, which I made in 2003. Once you do so, rest assured that the tiger of Jonathan will return to devour you mercilessly. Remain on course.” Add to this advice the characteristic vengeance of Obasanjo that is adding oxygen to the fire in the background. With these voices and those fears, the governors could only become more dogged by the day. We can go on and on in our comparison of past and present conflicts in the ruling PDP. Let us break that now and focus on the implication of the President’s position. Effectively, the crisis shuts the gates of 2015 before the President. The scenarios are obvious and they all point to a President in his decline and fall: Goodluck is faced with bad luck in all directions. Let us look at the arithmetic. Arithmetic Starting from the APC governors, the President should not expect support from their eleven states. For ethnic reasons, one may allow him the majority votes of Edo state. That takes away the support of eleven governors and the majority votes of ten states. Then Jonathan is certain to lose the majority votes in six of the seven New PDP governors – that is granting him Rivers State who may decide to support him for ethnic reasons. This brings the number of states that the President may lose their majority votes to sixteen. Then comes the five states of Bauchi, Gombe, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi and Kaduna in which the President will also lose their majority votes though the governors are yet to abandon him. He lost them in 2011, some woefully. This brings the number of states against the President to a staggering figure of twenty-one. Taraba state is uncertain, the votes being likely to be shared equally between the APC candidate and the President. That leaves the President with the majority of votes in only Benue and Plateau States in the North for obvious reasons, plus, of course, the majority votes in the southeast, South-South and, possibly, non-APC states of Ondo and neighbouring Ekiti in the southwest. Even here, the states and zones are not big enough on the voters register to make any significant impact, with some having as low as 472,00 votes (Bayelsa) when compared to Lagos (6million) and Kano (5million) votes, both of which are not supporting the President. I will come to another possibility where the opposition can win the overwhelming majority votes in all states of southwest without exception. But before then, let us see what the above arithmetic means in terms of voter-opportunity for the President – a complete bad luck: 22.9million against 45.7million or one-third against two thirds! I have presented below the total number of voters in each state belonging to the President and the opposition APC. (I am afraid that the formats of my blog and Facebook page may not keep the table intact.) Jonathan States 1 Bayelsa 472,389 2 Ekiti 750,753 3 Ebonyi 876,249 4 C/River 1,018,550 5 Enugu 1,301,185 6 Benue 1,415,162 7 Abia 1,481,191 8 Ondo 1,558,975 9 Imo 1,611,715 10 A/Ibom 1,714,781 11 Anambra 1,758,220 12 Delta 1,900,055 13 Plateau 1,983,453 14 Rivers 2,419,057 15 Edo 1,412,225 16 Taraba 1,308,106 TOTAL = 22,982,066 APC Candidate States 1 Fct 886,323 2 Kwara 1,115,665 3 Yobe 1,182,230 4 Kogi 1,215,405 5 Nasarawa 1,224,206 6 Gombe 1,266,993 7 Osun 1,293,967 8 Kebbi 1,603,468 9 Adamawa 1,714,860 10 Niger 1,721,478 11 Zamfara 1,746,024 12 Bauchi 1,835,562 13 Jigawa 1,852,698 14 Sokoto 2,065,508 15 Oyo 2,577,490 16 Borno 2,730,368 17 Katsina 2,931,668 18 Kaduna 3,565,762 19 Kano 5,135,415 20 Lagos 6,247,845 21 Ogun 1,869,326 TOTAL = 45,782,261 Depending on who the APC fields as its presidential candidate, the President may not even get the votes of Ekiti and Ondo states. That makes his chances bleaker: 20.6million against 48million votes.
Posted on: Sun, 08 Sep 2013 17:14:05 +0000
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