Five factors that helped Tinubu win the presidential election

President-elect Bola Tinubu emerged from a hard-fought presidential election and is set to become Nigeria’s 16th president.

The former Governor of Lagos State emerged despite several polls from various organizations striking him off. His last-minute naira reform policies nearly torpedoed his presidential ambitions, but barring a court announcement, he will be sworn in as president on May 29.

In this article, inverse24 will discuss the top five factors that allowed it to emerge through thick and thin.

A divided opposition

Tinubu ran for office against a fragmented opposition. In 2019, Abubakar Atiku, Peter Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso all joined the PDP, but were defeated by the power of Muhammadu Buhari.

Despite the defeat, the PDP maintained its stronghold in the southeast and south-south and also performed well in the southwest and north-central.

On Saturday, the APC instead faced Obi in the Labor Party, Kwankwaso in the NNPP and Atiku in the PDP. Furthermore, some members of the G5 governors are said to have worked for the ruling party.

At the end of the poll, Kwankwaso kept his hold on Kano, Obi kept South-East and South-South while Atiku had a strong performance in the North, but their individual performances weren’t enough to beat the party at the government. Northcentral came to the rescue

Several pre-election opinion polls nominated Northcentral as the Labor Party’s candidate, but the ruling party caused upheaval in the region by winning four states including Benue State.

The party won Kwara, Kogi, Niger and Benue states. It should be remembered that no one has won the presidential election without winning Northcentral.

Second place is good

Another factor that helped the ruling party was its ability to secure second place in a worst-case scenario.

For example, in Kano State, the NNPP won the state by a wide margin, but the gap between Tinubu and Atiku was over 380,000 votes. Considering Atiku was Tinubu’s main rival in the northwest, the second position was quite good.

In a four-horse race, winning your fort is important, but how you do in your opponent’s territory is important.

In the northwest, Tinubu narrowly lost Katsina, Sokoto and Kebbi states to Atiku.

In Plateau, Akwa-Ibom, Nasarawa – he was also able to claim second place.

Powerful allies

Tinubu’s victory in Benue State could be attributed to the influence of Father Hyacinth Alia, APC’s gubernatorial candidate in Benue State. In Sokoto State, Aliyu Wamakko prevented Atiku’s campaign director general, Governor Aminu Tambuwal, from supplying Sokoto to Atiku by a large margin.

In Katsina, President Muhammadu Buhari had to show his ballot paper to voters to give them a signal on how to vote.

Godswill Akpabio’s presence at Akwa-Ibom helped secure second place while Governor Nyesom Wike tied what could be considered impossible: for the first time, APC won at Rivers State.

Bad performance of Atiku in the South

Some supporters of the former vice president had boasted of the 11 million votes during the election campaign. What they didn’t take into account, however, is that most were from the South. Unlike the 2019 election, Atiku performed poorly in South and Northcentral.

He failed to win a single state in Northcentral, winning only three states out of 17 states in the South: Osun, Akwa- and Bayelsa.

His running mate, Ifeanyi Okowa, also failed to win his state, Delta State.

All these factors gave Tinubu a victory at the polls.