The 2023 presidential election will go beyond the first round. A rerun election will decide the winner.
It is already obvious that over 90 percent of Christians will vote Peter Obi. He has already the sympathy and support of the Christian community as their consensus candidate.
Meanwhile, in the same vein, over 90 percent of Muslims will either vote Atiku or Tinubu, making the 2023 presidential contest a Christian-Muslim contest in Nigeria.
Nigeria is a highly polarized country. The country is polarized along religious, ethic and tribal lines.
Also, one of its polarizations is the bourgeoisie and proletariat. There's no middle class in Nigeria; it's either you are poor or rich.
Poverty in Nigeria is created by politics but fueled by religion and ethnicity; hence, the two 'mumu' buttons on Nigerians are ethnicity and religion.
If you examine this with the 2023 political reality, then we can say that the majority of the South-West (Muslim or Christian) will vote Tinubu.
The majority of the South-East and South-South will vote Peter Obi.
The North-East will vote Atiku, while the North West will vote Tinubu because of Shettima and Tinubu.
The FCT and North Central States of Taraba, Benue, Niger, Kogi, Plateau and Nasarrawa will be swing States. But Obi will win the FCT.
FCT politics, as I know, is controlled by the Igbos because of their population and market unions.
The way the micro political units of the Iyalojas in Lagos are used as political machineries to drive huge votes, the Igbos can pull the same force in the FCT, especially in AMAC, Gwagwalada, Bwari and Kuje Area Councils.
Obi will take a huge chunk of Benue, Plateau, Taraba and Nasarrawa votes because of the current surge in the Obidient wave and the Igbo population in these States.
I'm presently in the South-South, the truth is, the region is not even aware that a South-South person, Okowa, is the VP candidate of the PDP.
So by and large, Obi will clear the South-East, South-South, 50%North Central, but cannot win any of the North-East and North-West State. The election will definitely result in a rerun.
This same analogy is applicable to Tinubu. Tinubu is expected to clear the South-West and North-West, except Sokoto, and have a good share in the North Central votes.
But both Obi and Tinubu cannot be declared president by such strides in votes. Why?
The President of Nigeria is elected using a modified two round system, to be elected in the first round, a candidate must receive a majority of the vote and over 25% of the vote in at least 24 of the 36 states. If no candidate passes this threshold, a second round is held.
There are five States in the South-East and six in the South-South. If Obi wins these States as projected, it makes it eleven States for him.
If you add the North Central States of Benue, Plateau and Nasarrawa that he's most likely going to win, that will make it fourteen States for him. If you add the FCT for Obi, then it comes up to fifteen for him.
For Tinubu, the South-West states are six in numbers. Plus the projected seven North West States that he's expected to win except Sokoto, because of the president and Shettima. That makes it twelve for him. Plus Kwara and Niger States, fourteen.
For Atiku, he's expected to win four of the six North East States. Shettima will win Bornu, while Obi will divide Taraba with him. Atiku will win Sokoto State.
This is how the 2023 presidential election will be decided, leading to an inevitable rerun. It is at the rerun that many things will happen – intense vote buying, electronic manipulation of votes, collusion and systemic hacking.
So in the actual sense, the election is between Tinubu and Obi. The BVAS machine must be tele-guided and party agents installed in INEC digital rooms and in all polling centres across the country.
The election will be keenly contested. Atiku has a very slim chance at victory.