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APC presidential primaries: What the numbers say about possible winners

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2 years ago

June 7, 2022

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The APC presidential primary is now in full swing at the Eagle Square, Abuja, where 21 presidential aspirants are duking it out for the party’s flag in the 2023 general election. T

Nigerians witnessed the game the APC politicians played in the last few days, and how eventually 13 northern governors in the party rose to challenge the skullduggery the party chairman Abdullahi Adamu wanted to play: imposition of Sen. President Ahmed Lawan; and dropping of President Muhammadu’s name to stamp it.

However, the governors apparently have their own joker too. Anyhow, they managed to separate the contenders from the pretenders, and handed Buhari their own shortlist to Tuesday morning.

Bola Tinubu (BAT), V.P Yemi Osinbajo (PYO), Gov Kayode Fayemi (FJK) , Rotimi Chibike Amechi (RCA) and David Umahi (DU) are the contenders.

And they have no fewer than 2,340 party delegates from the 774 local government areas in the country and area councils in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to determine who wins.

The adhoc delegates are the only ones empowered to vote in the party’s primaries as Statutory delegates comprising of the President, Vice President, House of Assembly members were exempted from the exercise by the newly amended electoral act.

The Electoral Act 2022 does not establish or mention a role for Statutory delegates.

This issue in the electoral act has generated a lot of controversy as lawmakers are currently battling to correct that section of the act.

The Section 84 (8) of the act states that “A political party that adopts the system of indirect primaries for the choice of its candidate shall clearly outline in its constitution and rules the procedure for the democratic election of delegates to vote at the convention, congress or meeting.”

Breakdown of delegates by zone

South East —288
South West —411
South South —359
North West —558
North Central —363
North East —336

With 2,340 delegates and 13 aspirants, this comes to equal votes of 180 each or 7.69 percent of the total votes.

To stand a chance, the 13 aspirants will have to first seek to secure at least 180 of the delegates votes to stand a chance and then look forward in adding numbers from other delegates.

Breakdown shows that Northern Nigeria has about 1,257 delegates and Southern Nigeria has a total of 1,068 delegates.

Buhari’s seeming decision to throw the race open cleared all doubts about where he stands on the choice of a presidential candidate for the governing party, having declared before the party’s 13 northern state governors that he had “no preferred candidate” and has “anointed no one.”

Thirteen names were cleared by the APC screening committee to vie for the party’s presidential ticket.

The names include Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Bola Tinubu, Akpabio Godswill, Amaechi Chibuike Rotimi, Amosun Ibikunle, Bello Yahaya, Fayemi Kayode, Jack -Rich Tein, Lawan, Ahmed, Nwajiuba Chukwuemeka, Onu Christopher and Umahi Nweze David.

Tinubu has the support of most of the states with at least 15 states expected to give him block votes.

Four other forefront aspirants are projected to have a clean sweep on two states each while they join Tinubu to fight for the votes from 10 states and the FCT with no clear voting decision or swinging in the pendulum between the five frontline aspirants.

The four in this category are Osinbajo (Ogun & Nasarawa), Lawan (Yobe and Imo), Kayode Fayemi (Ekiti and Anambra) and Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers and Plateau).

Three other aspirants are projected to win only in their states. They are Kogi’s Yahaya Bello, Cross River’s Ben Ayade, former Akwa Ibom Governor, Godswill Akpabio and former Minister of Science and Innovation, Ogbonnaya Onu (Ebonyi).

A number of the states the former Lagos governor is expected to win fall among those with highest number of party delegates.

Projection shows that Tinubu is likely going to sweep the votes from Kano, Kaduna, Katsina, Borno, Sokoto, Lagos, Osun, Niger, Adamawa, Bauchi, Ondo, Kwara, Benue, Edo, Delta and Zamfara.

Aside his known grip on Lagos and Osun, the former governor has the backing of the deciders in the 14 other states who had either publicly expressed their support for him or are strongly believed to be in his camp.

Of the 13 northern governors pushing for return of the presidency to the South, at least eleven are said to be rooting for him.