Nigeria Decides: How Nigerians may vote

After months of preparation, vigorous campaign by political parties and their candidates, postponement in scheduled dates, accusations and counter-accusations, the 2015 presidential election is here, and in less than 24 hours, Nigerians will be heading to the polls to choose who among the 14 presidential candidates who have secured the tickets of their parties as the next president of the most populous black nation on earth!

Saturday’s presidential election is arguably the most important in the history of Nigeria as a nation and one that will go down in record as the most fiercely fought. It is the most important because it is the first presidential election after the nation celebrated its first 100 years of nationhood. It is the most important because Nigerians are going to the polls to elect a new leader in a time of war, the war against Boko Haram insurgents. It is the most important, because Nigerians have never at any point been this politically aware and passionate about elections as it is been witnessed at the moment.

The 2015 presidential election holding tomorrow, as pointed out, will also be the nation’s most fiercely contested and one that may not produce an overwhelming victory for any of the candidates. Students of history are quick to point out the fact that at no point in the history of Nigerian elections has a ruling party or an incumbent been given the kind of fight and scare as is being experienced at the moment in an election year. Since the return to constitutional democracy in 1999, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has always had a field day, going into national elections with so much comfort and confidence, a situation that made a leader of the party to once boast that the PDP will rule Nigeria for the next 60 years.

As their slogan implies, the coming on board of the All Progressives Congress, APC, into the nation’s political firmament after a successful merger of the legacy parties, has proven to be a game changer in Saturday’s election. The party, through the combination of deft political maneuvers, extreme and productive use of the media and propaganda, has been able to work itself into the consciousness of Nigerians, many of whom see the party and its presidential candidate as the change they have been waiting for.

The current discontent in the land and the clamour for change, notwithstanding, Saturday’s election will surely be a photo finish contest between the two main contenders, incumbent President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and a former Military Head of State, General Muhammadu Buhari.

President Jonathan, a former Vice President to late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, is coming into Saturday’s contest with Nigeria’s famed incumbency factor, the ruling party’s national spread and hitherto behemoth structure across the length and breadth of the country, the gale of endorsements coming his way and adoptions by some other opposition parties. For General Buhari, the widespread discontent and clamour for change in the land seems to be his most potent weapon in Saturday’s election. Coupled with this, is the expected block votes from the Northern and Southwestern states which his party, the APC, has as strongholds.

Though Saturday’s presidential election may be predictable on regional basis, it is however instructive to look at how Nigerians may vote in the 36 states of the federation and the FCT, as block votes may not necessarily come in handy in some geo-political zones.