2019 Presidential Elections Predictions: We were largely right

On January 13, 2019, when our first predictions on the 2019 Presidential Election was published here, we projected correctly that this year’s presidential election would be a two-horse race between President Muhammadu Buhari of All Progressives Congress (APC) and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In that report, which set the pace on 2019 Presidential Election predictions, we also reported that Buhari will win the election convincingly and that Atiku will also do well and pull surprises in many areas.

As predicted then, Buhari was finally declared the winner of the election, having won in 19 states out of the 36, leaving Atiku with 17 states and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

In that first report however, we had given Buhari 17 states plus the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja, while we gave Atiku 10 states, leaving out eight (8) states which we identified as battlegrounds.

By February 10, 2019, following new developments arising mainly from campaigns and last minutes defections and realignments, we realised the need to review our predictions. So in the edition of that Sunday, February 10, 2019, we came up with reviewed predictions.

In that report, we predicted that APC’s Buhari will not only win the election but will actually win in 21 states, leaving Atiku with 11 states as the battleground states, had, according to our reading of the polity, reduced to only five (5) states. While in the first report, we identified Akwa Ibom, Imo, Jigawa, Kogi, Plateau, Adamawa, Gombe and Bauchi states as battlegrounds, in our second report, we projected that Bauchi was no longer a battleground, same for Gombe, Jigawa and Akwa Ibom. Our prediction then was that Buhari will win in these states. As the final results showed, we were correct in Bauchi, Gombe, and Jigawa as Buhari won in these states. We however missed it in Akwa Ibom, where, contrary to our prediction, based on our reading of the likely influence of Senator Godswill Akpabio’s influence, we underrated the overall impact of local politics in the South-south state.

We also got it right in states like Adamawa, Plateau and Kogi, which we consistently identified as battlegrounds. In these states, as we predicted, the political battle was very interesting. While Buhari won in Kogi, Atiku won in Adamawa and in Plateau.

Of special interest are the cases of Imo, Jigawa, Gombe and Bauchi. In these states, we were precisely correct in our second predictions. In each of these states, we predicted in the first report that they were battlegrounds. But in our second report, we reported that Bauchi, Gombe and Jigawa were no longer battlegrounds but would be won by Buhari. We were right. Buhari won in these states. We also reported that because of the internal crisis in the ruling APC in Imo State, it will no longer be a battleground but that PDP’s Atiku will win in the state. He did. Independent National Electoral Commission’s result showed that in Gombe State APC got 402,961 while PDP got 138,484, making Muhammadu Buhari the winner.

In Jigawa State, APC got 794,738 while PDP got 289,895 votes, making Buhari the winner. Also in Bauchi state APC garnered 798,428 while PDP got 209,313 votes, making Buhari the winner.

We were also as precisely correct in Imo. INEC result shows that in the state, APC got 140,463 votes while PDP garnered 334,923 votes, making Alhaji Atiku Abubakar the winner.

It would be recalled that in-between our first predictions and the second, we, on January 27, 2019, wrote a report on 13 hot states to watch in the presidential and National Assembly Elections. Taking cognisance of the local intrigues and personalities contesting against each other, we reported that the states, Ogun, Delta, Imo, Rivers, Akwa-Ibom, Kwara, Kogi, Benue, Taraba, Adamawa, Bauchi, Kaduna and Kano, would be hot and so deserve special attention.

As we reported, the results of these states in the Presidential and National Assembly Elections were not only interesting but also a reflection of some radical changes that have happened in the politics of Nigeria in recent times.

For example, the results of Presidential and national Assembly elections constitute a valuable data for students of political evolution in a changing society. INEC result showed that in Kwara State APC garnered 308,984 votes as against PDP’s 138,184 votes, making Muhammadu Buhari of APC the winner, in spite of the fact that Senate President Bukola Saraki, the leader of the Saraki dynasty actually the PDP army in the contest. Considering the fact that the Sarakis had, since commencement of civil democracy in the country, held political power in the state, our projection in our first report was that PDP’s Atiku will win since Saraki had defected to PDP and was personally leading the attack. But realising the internal dynamics in the state, we in our second report declared the state a battleground, a prediction some distant observers queried.  But as the final result showed, Buhari actually won in the state.

In all, it could be seen from the final results, as announced by INEC that our projections were majorly correct, just like it was in 2015 when we also projected the defeat of then President Goodluck Jonathan.

In summary, we projected initially that in this year’s Presidential race, Buhari will win in 17 states plus Abuja. Few days to the election, we reported that he would likely win in 21 states. He finally won in 19 states, garnering 15,191,847 million votes.

Also we reported in all our projections, that Buhari will get more votes in areas he hitherto could not get meaningful votes in 2015 in addition to his traditional strongholds. This was also correct as Buhari, though he lost FCT to Atiku, easily satisfied the constitutional requirement of making 25 per cent in 34 states, including Southeast and South-south states and the FCT.

We also reported that the election would be tough as PDP has seemed to have actually revived and was ready for a big fight with its candidate, Atiku. As INEC’s report shows, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party scored 11,262,978 million votes and won 17 states and Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory.

Also, our projections on how the geo-political zones would vote are not just correct but near 100 percent correct. We had projected correctly that Buhari will clear the Northwest, Northcentral, Northeast and Southwest. This he did, though Atiku won in states like Taraba, Benue and Plateau as we speculated and in the FCT against our speculation. Buhari also won in the Southwest though, contrary to our predictions, Atiku won in Oyo and Ondo states.

In the Southeast and South-south zones, our projections were also largely correct as Atiku won in the zones as we predicted. However, against our projection, Atiku also won in Edo, a South-south state we gave to APC’s Buhari and in Akwa’Ibom state, which we first declared a battleground but later gave to Buhari.

In all, it can be seen that just as we did in 2015, we have again set the pace with our objective projections of how the people will vote in 2019 Presidential and other elections. INEC’s results of the Presidential and National Assembly Elections have shown that we base our reports on facts on the ground and not on mere sentiments.