2015 ELECTION: THE COMING ELECTION........

As the countdown to this year’s general election moves towards its climax, Vincent Obia considers some issues around the election

On March 28, a total of 68,833,476 Nigerian voters registered in the Independent National Electoral Commission’s biometric Register of Voters will go to the polls to determine the person who will preside over the affairs of the country for the next four years and the composition of the legislature that will work with him.

In the findings of some poll agencies like Eurasia Group and Youth Ballot Evolution, victory has been given separately to the two main presidential candidates – President Goodluck Jonathan, who is the candidate of Peoples Democratic Party, and the All Progressives Congress candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari.

About a fortnight ago, Eurasia Group, the world’s largest political risk consultancy corporation, projected a wide margin win for Buhari, in a reversal of its previous forecast, which had given Jonathan a slim victory.  

Eurasia, in a note by its Practice Head for Africa, Philippe de Pontet, predicted that Buhari would win 60 per cent of the votes, stressing, “The electoral map is tilting towards Buhari in the swing regions of the South-west and Middle Belt, while high turnout in his core northern base will offset Jonathan’s advantage in the Niger Delta.

“While we expected the electoral map to favour Jonathan, current trends suggest that the swing regions may side with Buhari, including the Christian-majority and heavily populated South-west around Lagos. That could be the decisive demographic factor in the election.”

Eurasia explained, “We had long viewed Goodluck Jonathan as a favourite to win reelection, but a number of factors now lead us to believe the edge has swung in Buhari’s favour. The election will still be difficult to call, but our expectation of a narrow Jonathan win was predicated on several factors that are losing some saliency late in the campaign.

“Chief among them is the incumbency and financial advantages of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party. While this still helps Jonathan, its impact is blunted by the intensity of support for Buhari, lacklustre grassroots campaigning by the PDP, and new anti-rigging measures by the electoral commission. New permanent voting cards and card readers will sharply reduce the level of rigging seen in 2011, when Jonathan beat Buhari in a landslide.

“Equally important are the enthusiasm gap between the candidates and widespread desire for change. Tepid support for Jonathan, even within his own party, means there is no guarantee that patronage will translate into votes. This is especially the case in the North where influential PDP governors and other leaders are taking the money but barely campaigning for Jonathan because of Buhari’s overwhelming popularity in the region.”

In its own poll in January, Youth Ballot Evolution gave Jonathan victory with 51 per cent of the total votes, against Buhari’s 49 per cent. YBE said it arrived at the result through an offline poll, ‎which it said had an impressive turnout with a total of 6,115,213 votes cast in a 27-hour period, and a total of 5,863,094 valid votes. While Jonathan got 2,990,178 of the total votes, Buhari had 2,872,197, according to the group, a platform of youths, which says it has over 8.7 million registered members across the country.

A statement by YBE said the poll took place from 9am on January 24 to noon on January 25, and it was conducted “following a clamour‎ by the youths on the need to conduct an offline poll ahead of the presidential election.

“Recent polls in Nigeria have mostly been conducted online. While this is a valid means of conducting a poll, it does not give everybody an opportunity to participate, as a lot of Nigerians do not have steady internet access.

“The Youth Ballot Evolution, which has more than 70 per cent of its members as offline members, realised that a truly valid public opinion poll could only be conducted using an offline medium.

“This led to the YBE presidential opinion poll, which was conducted by allowing interested voters to choose between the APC presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari, and the PDP presidential candidate, President Goodluck Jonathan, by calling a toll-free number.”

Public opinion is divided, and it is hard to say exactly where the pendulum will swing. But, generally, the prognoses and probabilities are heading towards a tight race, with some seeing the two major presidential candidates locked in a dead heat in the most hotly contested poll since the country’s independence in 1960.

There are 14 presidential candidates in the race – though some have since the announcement of a six-week postponement of the polls on February 7 declared an intention to step down for either Buhari or Jonathan. But on March 28, everyone will focus on the PDP and APC presidential candidates.  

Jonathan
Jonathan, the 14th head of state of Nigeria, has been presiding over the affairs of the country since February 9, 2010, when he became Acting President after an unprecedented “Doctrine of Necessity” passed by the Senate. It followed then President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s long absence from duty, due to medical treatment abroad, without proper transmission of power to Jonathan, who was then the vice president. Jonathan was sworn in as substantive president on May 6, 2010 following Yar’Adua’s death on May 5, 2010.

Jonathan’s second term campaign has been anchored on his government’s Transformation Agenda, which has, indeed, produced transformational results in some sectors, like transportation, agriculture, and power. But critics say the results are too small to compare with the resources that have been available to the government.

The president also hopes to gain points from the recent successful onslaught against Boko Haram within the poll extension period, which has led to the recovery of nearly all the territories previously occupied by the terrorist group. The military announced last week that they had recovered all the territories held by Boko Haram in Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe states, except three local government areas in Borno State.

Buhari
Buhari became military Head of State on December 31, 1983 following a military coup, and he ruled till August 27, 1985, when his regime was overthrown by General Ibrahim Babangida in a palace coup. Buhari was Nigeria’s seventh Head of State. He ran unsuccessfully for the office of president in the 2003, 2007 and 2011 general elections. But Buhari’s latest presidential bid appears to be his best chance to win the highest political office in the country.

The former Head of State’s past dictatorial regime has provided the greatest ammunition to his critics in the present presidential contest. Particularly significant was Decree Number 4 of 1984, the Protection Against False Accusations Decree, under which journalists were tried and jailed by military tribunals, which offered no right of appeal, for publishing or airing items that the government considered offensive.

But Buhari says he is “now a converted democrat.” He said at an interactive session with the Nigerian Press Organisation in Abuja on Tuesday, “Many of you are aware of Decree 4 of 1984, which was heavily criticised. I have said elsewhere that I cannot change the past. But I can change the present and the future. Dictatorship goes with military rule, as do edicts such as Decree 4. However, I am a former – former, note the emphasis on the word ‘former’ – military ruler and now a converted democrat, who is ready to operate under democratic norms.”
However, Buhari’s tough guy image has also proved to be his strong point in the presidential race. He has anchored his campaign on a promise to fight corruption and insecurity head-on. Many see the dual menaces of corruption and insecurity as the biggest drag on the country’s economy.  He has also pledged to rebuild the economy and provide infrastructure.

Election Day
Nigerians shall be choosing between Jonathan and Buhari on the presidential election day of March 28. Though, there has been a lot of scepticism as to whether that day will come. If it does, polling will be conducted in 119, 973 polling units across the 36 states of federation and the Federal Capital Territory.

For the first time in a general election in Nigeria, permanent voter cards will be used in the coming elections. INEC says it has produced PVCs for the 68,833,476 persons in the biometric Register of Voters ahead of the March 28 presidential and National Assembly elections and April 11 governorship and House of Assembly elections. The PVC replaces the temporary voter card issued during the 2011 voter registration.

Produced with many security components and specialised features, INEC says the PVC is designed with an average life span of 10 years. It has an embedded chip that contains all the biometrics of the legitimate holder (including fingerprints and facial image). On Election Day, the PVC will be swiped with a Smart Card Reader at the polling unit to ensure full authentication and verification of the voter before he or she is allowed to vote.

INEC says TVCs will not be allowed for the coming elections. Card readers will be used for the first time in Nigeria’s electoral history in the coming elections as an electronic voter authentication system that should take an average of 10 seconds to authenticate a voter. INEC says it will make available a card reader at every voting point in the 36 states and the FCT during the elections, with a substantial number of spares available to address contingencies.

On Election Day, a voter is expected to go the polling unit where he was registered with his PVC, which will be presented to the INEC official at the unit to ensure that the voter’s name is in the register. The accredited voter’s finger would be marked with ink to show that he has been accredited.

The accredited voter would be given a ballot paper listing out the political parties participating in the election, and with the ballot paper, he enter the booth and selects his preferred candidate, then returns to drop the ballot paper in the ballot box after voting.

Winning the Presidential Poll
The country’s electoral system makes it impossible for a candidate to become the president with the votes of only a particular geopolitical section of the electorate. The law makes national spread of acceptability compulsory for the winner of a presidential election.

The 1999 Constitution says, “A candidate for an election to the office of president shall be deemed to have been duly elected where, there being more than two candidates for the election –
“He has the highest number of votes cast at the election, and

“He has not less than one-quarter of the votes cast at the election in each of at least two-thirds of all the states in the federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.”
So the winner of the next presidential election must, in addition to having the highest number of votes nationally, have no less than 25 per cent of the votes cast in at least 24 of the 36 states of the federation. 

The 2010 Electoral Act (as amended) stipulates the organisation of a run-off within seven days of a presidential election, if there is no clear winner at the first ballot. The second contest is done between the candidate who came first in the first ballot and the runner-up, to determine the winner of the election by a simple majority.

In the last presidential election in 2011, only 20 of the 63 registered political parties at the time presented candidates. Voter turnout was 53.7 per cent, that is 39, 469, 484 of the 73, 528, 040 total registered voters.

What the figures will look like this year will be determined in the next few weeks as Nigerians go to the polls on March 28 and April 11.