By Ishaya Ibrahim
The candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2019 presidential poll, Muhammadu Buhari, may not lose sleep over his chances in the North West.
The region is his ace, and happily, for him, it has 20 million registered voters out of the 84 million in the country.
The North West has seven states, all of which are in the APC with the only exception being Sokoto. The Governor, Aminu Tambuwal, joined the PDP in August 2018 from the APC.
Buhari has the numbers in the North West, the region which has 23 per cent of Nigerian voters.
In 2015, Buhari scored 84 per cent in the North West against his contender, former President Goodluck Jonathan who had the remaining 16 per cent.
In 2011, Buhari contested for the presidency as the candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC). He won the region by 59 per cent. The incumbent, Jonathan, got 39 per cent.
In 2019, the North West will still be up for Buhari to grab. The challenge however for him is the margin of win he may have against Atiku, a fellow northerner and Muslim.
Sifting from the data of the previous two elections, TheNiche data analysis forecasts 60 per cent win for Buhari in the North West while Atiku comes second by 40 per cent. This is why it may be is so….
Kaduna
In the two previous elections, Buhari has won Kaduna State. In 2011, he polled 51 per cent of the votes, while Jonathan got 46 per cent.
In 2015, his position improved to 68 per cent against Jonathan’s 29 per cent. How he is likely to fare in 2019 may be affected by the security situation that has disturbed the state.
Kaduna has a mixture of Muslim and Christian population. The relationship between these two religions got sour as a result of the herdsmen crisis. Although it has abated, the Christians, largely in Kaduna South, which has nine out of the 23 local governments of the state, hold a grudge against the state governor, Nasir El-Rufai over what they believe was his partisan position to the crisis.
El-Rufai did not also improve the situation with the Christians. He dropped his deputy, Bala Bantex, a Christian, as his running mate and chose a Muslim, Hadiza Balarabe for the 2019 poll.
His action is unprecedented in a state that has always maintained religious balancing in political appointments. In 2019, Buhari may be affected by the Christians anger against El-Rufai. The election will be a battleground for Buhari and Atiku.
Kaduna has the second largest voting population in the North West after Kano
Sokoto
Sokoto is currently a PDP state. But Buhari has won the state in 2011 election even when the electorate voted PDP at local elections.
Aliyu Wamakko, the former governor of the state, defected to the APC close to the 2015 election. In the election, Buhari clinched 80 per cent of the vote cast. Jonathan got 17 per cent.
But in the 2011 election, Wamakko was in the PDP. While he won his election, Buhari got the majority of the presidential votes by 59 per cent while Jonathan got 33 per cent.
Now that the PDP has returned to the saddle in the state, analysts are projecting a repeat of the 2011 scenario, that is, Buhari will win by 60 per cent leaving Atiku with 40 per cent in the state.
Kano
The strongman of Kano politics, Rabiu Kwankwaso, is already proving his mettle for the PDP by bringing out red cap supporters in their numbers for the PDP at rallies in the state. But this will not stop Buhari from winning the majority of the votes in the state.
In the 2015 election, Kwankwaso is believed to have helped to deliver 1.9 million votes for Buhari, that is, 89 per cent of the ballot, while Jonathan came a distant second with a little over 200,000 votes which are 10 per cent.
The 2011 election was slightly different. Even though the PDP won the governorship election, Buhari got 60 per cent of the votes. Jonathan had 16 per cent. A former governor of the state, Ibrahim Shekarau who contested the election under the platform of the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) scored 19 per cent.
Giving the momentum of the PDP campaign in Kano, analysts have projected that Atiku may close the gap by scoring between 30 to 40 per cent of the votes, while Buhari wins by 60 to 70 per cent.
Jigawa
In Jigawa, the bulk votes which Buhari got in 2015 may be depleted. The state has been in the PDP column since 1999. But in the last election, the PDP stalwarts in the state subtly campaigned for Buhari for the presidency while urging a PDP government at other levels. The result was a sweeping victory for the APC in all positions. Buhari scored 85 per cent in the presidential election, Jonathan got 13 per cent.
With the lesson learned by the PDP, the 2019 election may slightly resemble the 2011 election. In the 2011 poll, Buhari got 58 per cent win, Jonathan got 36 per cent.
Zamfara
Zamfara is traditionally an APC state. In 1999, the state was ANPP until in 2008 when the governor, Mahmud Shinkafi defected to the ruling PDP. He lost the next election to Abdulaziz Yari of the ANPP. ANPP later joined other political parties to form APC.
Currently, the APC has no candidates in all elective positions of the state. It failed to keep to INEC’s deadline for the submission of candidates’ list.
The insecurity situation in Zamfara where bandits overrun communities, kill, steal and rape their women, may trigger voter apathy in the largely APC state. While Buhari is expected to win the state which he has always done since he first contested for Nigeria’s presidency in 2003, the number of people that may turn out for the election may be very low.
Katsina, Kebbi
The other North West states are Kebbi and Katsina which Buhari is expected to win with a landslide, especially Katsina, his home state.
(Analysis on North East coming next)