NEWS ANALYSIS: Thisday’s dubious predictions, By Chris Adetayo

I read Thisday’s projections for the 2023 elections. It has to be one of the most biased political reporting I have read by a supposedly neutral arbiter of our political space. If it was written by a PDP hack, I will not doubt it.

First, on what we know now, there’s nothing “too close to call” about 2023. The cards are heavily stacked in favour of the APC. There’s still a lot of time and 4 months is multiple lifetimes in politics. But, as at today, there’s nothing out in the field to suggest, as the paper does, that PDP will come out trumps.

To be sure, the paper did not outrightly say that PDP will win. But if you read through, it projects PDP winning all 3 Northern zones and doing well in the SS and holding its own in the SW. Add all together and the conclusion has to be that PDP will win. How’s that for “too close to call”??

The problem though is that the PDP is struggling to put a united face before the electorate. It’s decision to pick a candidate from the North, after 8 years of Buhari, is increasingly looking worse than APC’s decision to go on a Muslim-Muslim ticket. It was supposed to be pragmatic but all it has done now is set the Southern elements in the party (led by Gov Wike) against the North.

Why is this important? Well, the reality is that Northern votes will not be enough to win the election, anymore than Southern votes will be enough to win it for a candidate from the South. To win, a candidate has to win at least one zone from both parts (North and South) of the country.

As at today, PDP is not going to win any of the 3 zones in the South. Since it is not also going to sweep the Northern votes, it’s chances are hugely diminished.

The same problem assails the Labour Party. To win, it has to win at least one of the Zones in the North. Yet it currently has little to no presence up North. It’s best bet is the North Central but Benue and Plateau States (where it can be relatively strong) will not wipe out Kogi, Nassarawa, Niger and Kwara. It’s non-existent in the NW and NE (which have a combined circa 35% of the electorate).

To change the current tide, both PDP and Labour have so much work to do away from their places of strength. Labour, to quote Tunji Adeyinka, “has to go North”. It’s really as simple as that. For PDP, it has to find a way to reign in Labour in the SS and then hope that it can ratchet up the numbers in the far North. If both cannot find a way to do these, all we will have is a lot of sound and fury that will, ultimately, signify nothing!