Presidential Election: Jonathan, Buhari Put Finishing Touch To Epic Outing

THERE now appears a quiet confidence among followers of Muhammadu Buhari’s Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), that Buhari could create a major upset in the April polls, going by the failure of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to put its house in order.

The Guardian political survey revealed that the Adamu Ciroma committee’s pro-North political campaigns might have inadvertently favoured the Buhari campaign that was not part of the original agenda. The objective of the Ciroma group was to get either former military president General Ibrahim Babangida or former Vice President Atiku Abubakar to be president. But when the committee’s choice, Atiku, did not make it at the PDP convention in February, the committee has quietly committed itself to sustaining the letter and spirit of the campaign: getting an aspirant of northern extraction elected in April. The Jonathan campaign is yet to break through the rock-solid Ciroma group, owing to the campaign’s reluctance to commit itself to any written agreement on transfer of power back to the North in 2015.

At the last meeting of the Jonathan and Ciroma groups on March 18, the second after the historic meeting at Ciroma’s Abuja residence earlier on, President Jonathan’s camp was apparently not prepared for concrete commitments. The committee headed by former Senate President, Pius Anyim Pius was said not to have updated the President on developments in reconciliation talks, and the meeting was reported to have deadlocked.

Meanwhile, the strategists in the North are eagerly waiting to take advantage of the failure by the PDP to reconcile, a situation that has opened Northern kingmakers to begin to consider other options, including Buhari. A member of the Atiku Organisation assured, however, that one week is enough for the PDP to make concessions and enter the elections with one undivided house. According to the source, disagreements in the PDP presidential convention were resolved less than one hour to the event. His worry, however, is that President Jonathan does not want to play politics and is being too rigid.

Buhari’s group base their winning theory on the figures recorded in the voters’ registration with these showing;

North West, Buhari’s comfort Zone 19,808,689 voters. South West, ACN’s enclave has 14, 296, 163 registered voters. North Central 10, 684, 017; South South 9, 474, 427; North East 10, 749,059 while the South East has 7, 577,212 voters.

Accordingly, top 10 states are Lagos (6,108,069) Kano (5,027,297) Kaduna (3,905, 387, Katsina (3,126,898, Oyo (2,572, 140), Bauchi (2,523, 614) Rivers 2,429, 231, Benue, (2,390, 884, Sokoto (2, 267, 509), Plateau (2,259, 194) totaling 32, 610,223 voters.

Notwithstanding the figures, the ruling party is not going into the elections blindfolded, after retaining power for nearly 12 years. Even the most virulent critic of Jonathan in Northern PDP does not feel comfortable with a Buhari presidency, especially with his promise to chase corrupt leaders out of the country.

The structure of INEC, leadership shows that the April election might be significantly different from 2003 and 2007’s. The voting procedure that INEC — led by one of them Professor Attahiru Jega (Kebbi) — has put in place in recent weeks has also raised the bar of discussion that indeed votes will count.

At the weekend, some of Jonathan’s men expressed anxiety that the entire leadership and operations of INEC consisting of Chairman, Attahiru Jega, (Kebbi), the Secretary, Alhaji Kagauma (Jigawa) all come from the same North West and the Director of Logistics, who deals with movement of voting materials), Alhaji Farouk Usman, is also from a core northern state.