A BLOODY GAME OF NUMBERS.

A BLOODY GAME OF NUMBERS

It is still baffling to me that 15 “human beings” perished on the 15th of March 2014 at a few stadia in Nigeria while searching for jobs and there has been no report of any inquiry about the events which led to the unfortunate deaths. The botched Immigration recruitment exercise has since been cancelled without any rescheduled dates and refunds for the thousands who made online applications. The Comptroller-General of Immigration and Minister of Interior retained their jobs and the bereaved families took home caskets. Well their sorrow did not last too long as 15 families were invited to Abuja for a speech and prize giving day on Friday to mark the anniversary of the Immigration tragedy.

The life of one young locally based Nigerian is now equal to 5 million naira plus 3 Immigration jobs for family members depending on the quality of certificate; Cambridge WASC or PhD. That is sadly what the families of the departed got from the benevolent president as the complicit CG and Minister watched on. I wonder if one family would have been entitled to 6 Immigration jobs and 10 million jobs if they had the misfortune of losing 2 members on that fateful day last year. What if 100 or 419 people who perished that day? It is astonishing that these jobs promised by the president last year happened to be strictly Immigration jobs. I suppose the surest route to get into the Immigration service in Nigeria or any Government job at that is to pray one’s sibling dies in a stampede during any recruitment exercise. They even mentioned that 10 family members presented for the jobs required replacement for failing several criteria such as age, build and academic qualification; but what happens if those who died do not have any individuals whose dream jobs is to become Immigration officers?

It is an absolute disgrace that human beings not goats perish and the occupant of the highest office in the land window dresses it and throws money at the bereaved while those who ought to be taken to the gallows continue to dine with “King Arthur” at the table. The worst sports tragedy in English History which claimed 96 Liverpool fans in 1989 still has inquests ongoing. David Duckenfield who was the police chief of Hillsborough at the time got to apologize profusely 3 days ago for claiming that he gave orders for the stadium gates to be opened which could have prevented the stampede when in fact he did not. The nations that seem to be prosperous are so not because they know or call on God; they are prosperous because of the simple good things they do to one another valuing lives.

Some of the Numbers that Matter

My friend and colleague appeared to me as pessimistic of the chances of General Buhari being declared the winner of the coming presidential elections. Many do not doubt that he would win clearly with all things being equal but the threat of the incumbent’s power and desperation causes them to shudder. I moved to defuse the tension and started to reel out some figures and projections which have helped to strengthen my resolve that the dark cloud over Nigeria represented by the incumbent incompetent leadership would clear after the March 28 polls. It was while I was going through by book of analysis that I realized that I had made a slight error with one value so I decided to review my calculations and compare them with a recent document from the Independent National Electoral Commission containing information about Permanent voters’ card collection across the nation.

The error I made was to have inferred that Goodluck Jonathan gained about 4.9 million votes from the South-South region in 2011 when he in fact had 6,118,608 votes recorded in his favor. I reflected on the shocking remarks made by the president’s wife in Kogi while on a campaign rescue mission where she arrogantly made derogatory remarks about the Northern states plagued by the menace of “Almajiri” children like her husband could do without their votes. I have been to some core Northern states: Kano, Kaduna, Gombe, Jigawa, Bauchi and Adamawa most of which have this caliber of young individuals in significant amounts. These states constitute a significant voting bloc and I sought to know exactly their contribution to getting Jonathan elected in 2011 whether calculated or manipulated. 

Jonathan earned 4,985,246 votes from the 5 Southeast states (98.28% of total votes cast) and 6,118,608 votes (96.51%) from his South-South stronghold. He was awarded 2,786,417 from the Southwest; 253,444 from Abuja and 3,574,480 from the Northcentral states. The Northeast and Northwest contributed 4,776,992 votes of a 22,495,187 total to grant Patience Jonathan access to the Villa. Jonathan least vote percentage in 2011 was 16.05% (Bauchi) and his highest was 99.63% (Bayelsa). He got over 90% of total votes cast in 10 other states all Southeast and South-South.

General Buhari on the other hand gathered most of his 12,214,853 votes from the Northeast and Northwest (10,049,583) despite having a very short time to form his party and campaign. He also did not have the present day arguably overwhelming Southwest support he now has which Jonathan is trying desperately to adulterate and skew towards his side. In 2011, Buhari was rewarded with 20,335 Southeast votes and 49,978 South-South votes. These figures were justified by many as just wages for not campaigning extensively or not at all in those regions. He gained 691 votes from Bayelsa (0.14%) and 6,997 votes from Osun state. Buhari scored 92,396 votes from the Southwest in 2011 and not he stands to benefit the most from over 8 million potential PVC holders in the region. The 1.870,985 votes from the North-Central is a little more than 50% of what Jonathan obtained from the same region which has at least 2 states with governors who have since decamped to the All Progressives congress. It would be unwise to assume that Goodluck Jonathan will sweep this region because of religious sentiment or because most of the governors are of the People’s Democratic Party. The harsh realities of a failing economy equally bites at the people in the middle belt and they have served as a buffer for absolving the millions displaced from the raging insurgency in the Northeast; I do not expect them to vote overwhelmingly for a government which they have witnessed watch on for years and failing to protect fellow Nigerians.  Buhari’s least percentage was 0.14% (Bayelsa) and his highest was 81.69% (Borno); he obtained a 25% or more representation in 17 states and the FCT unlike the 19 he had in 2003.

The document from INEC had 55,904,272 collected PVCs out of 68,833,476 registered voters: FCT (569,109), SE (6,615,934), SS (8,366,065), SW (8,964,946), NC (8,920,394) and NW & NE (22,467,824). I have deliberately put the NE and NW together because it is expected that Buhari would sweep the 2 regions as one bloc like he did in 2011. 

It should be expected that the figures for PVC collection will increase over the next few days but not to astronomical proportions that would greatly alter the present spread. There was a 53.7% overall voters turnout in 2011, a fall from the 58% of 2007 and 69.1% in 2003. If we estimate that we get 55% this year or slightly over considering the ongoing conflict and the fear resident in many hearts to make the move to vote; we would be pleasantly surprised if we got 35 million voters. 30,280,052 people voted in 1999, 42,018,735 in 2003, 35,397,517 in 2007 and 39,469,484 in 2011. I am afraid that the ruling party may be unable to inflate this year’s figure to make room for any manipulation especially if they fail in their bid to avert the use of the card readers.

If we leverage on the really high cumulative percentage voters turnout in the SE and SS regions from 2011 (65.8% and 67.9% respectively); then the two regions which contributed 97.3% (11,103,854 votes) of total votes cast in 2011 will only have a projected pool of just over 4.3million and 5.6million PVC holders.

It seems Nigeria is just a place where pre-election polls and projections hardly matter because of the fears of power of incumbency and the untold influence of monetary inducement. I am however very optimistic because any attempts to manipulate these elections by the PDP would be easy to detect and difficult to justify. I do not expect Jonathan to record over 95% of the SE and SS votes like he did in 2011 without raising any suspicion neither do I expect Buhari to get 691 votes from Bayelsa even though it is Jonathan’s backyard. Jonathan got awarded 26.13% of Katsina votes last time when Buhari got 0.14% of Bayelsa votes.

Egypt

So here I was watching CNN halfheartedly and the anchor starts to read a news report about Egypt; the Egypt in crisis and ruled by Military officers. The story was that Egypt is planning to establish a new capital city on some expanse of land between Suez and Cairo. It is expected to have brand new business districts, embassies and shelter for 5,000,000 people amongst other major developments. And then the man said it is expected to cost 45billion dollars.

How much did they say is missing or gets missing daily from our treasury again?

Joa

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