President Muhamadu Buhari Would Win 2019 Presidential Election - Leadership

Baring any major shifts in the next 12 days, we project that President Muhammadu Buhari would win the 2019 presidential election handily.

The election comes up on Saturday, February 16, 2019.

This forecast is not based on a scientific poll. It is the result of observations and wide-ranging interviews by our political editors and senior correspondents across the country.

We estimate that the president will win with about 60% of the votes, with an error margin of plus or minus 5%.

From our fieldwork, our Board of Editors found out that the PDP has been unsuccessful in making the presidential election a referendum on the president the way the new APC did on President Goodluck Jonathan in the 2015 presidential election.

Instead, the APC has successfully branded the PDP and its presidential candidate as a nightmare, creating the impression that PDP still represents a past of corruption, plunder and misrule. It would have helped the PDP a great deal if it had rebranded with a new name.


The APC’s message appears to have been particularly successful in the rural areas, where many voters still associate the PDP with a sordid record of corruption and “money sharing”.

Though job concerns ranked high among voters in the rural areas, the progress made by the Buhari administration in agriculture and the various financial inclusion programmes targeted at increased food sufficiency, also appear to have provided some comfort, blunting the PDP’s negative campaign on job losses and claims of widespread poverty.

We also discovered that the PDP presidential candidate has been unable to effectively split the votes of the Muslim North with PMB, thus giving the president a huge head start.

Atiku’s credentials as a Fulani and northerner – the same with Buhari – were widely expected to split the vote right down the middle, but field interviews indicated that this has not been the case.

Findings indicated that apart from ethnic affinity, voters were also looking for a candidate that they could trust, giving Buhari a clear edge.

The president has a stronghold on the North West, and surprisingly nearly so also in the North East where Atiku was expected to beat him.

From our findings, PMB will defeat Atiku in Adamawa State, his home state, where the PDP candidate and his protegees have consistently lost both in party primaries and main elections since 2003.

But Atiku would win in Taraba State partly because the exit of Aisha Alhassan, the former minister of Women Affairs from APC greatly weakened the party.

The North Central Zone is a mixed grill where Atiku was expected to do well turning the contest into a referendum on PMB, as many of the people there still blame the president for not taking a decisive action in the cattle herdsmen/farmers crisis.

Atiku is expected to win Plateau State. He should have been able to pick Benue State but the APC has successfully made the Benue struggle a fight between Senator George Akume, the most powerful politician in Tiv land today and Governor Samuel Ioraer Ortom who appears weak. That makes Benue State too close to call.

There would be a titanic struggle in Kogi State but the president is expected to win.

Kwara State will be the most important place to watch. The Stakes are high for both sides. Saraki would do everything to retain “ownership” of the state but the APC appears to have taken winning the state very personal. A strong indication that the tide was turning against the Saraki dynasty was the bye-election into the Kwara South Federal constituency last year, which was won by the APC. Kwara State, therefore, is too close to call.

Nasarawa is also too close to call. PMB will win in the FCT and win nearly the entire votes in Niger State.

PMB will win easily in all the six states of the South West. Adding the northern votes to the South West alone without the other zones, the president would have already won the election. That was the scenario in the 2015 presidential election.

But there is a tectonic shift in the South East and South South. PMB will get 40% in Akwa Ibom State and more than the required 25% in Cross River and Delta States. The president has a slight advantage over Atiku in Edo State. Atiku will clearly win in Rivers and Bayelsa States.

It should have been a massacre against the APC in the South East all things considered, but Atiku has been unable to get the loyalty of the South East governors. Peter Obi appears to be his achilles heel in South East. The biggest names in South East politics appear to be working for PMB behind the scenes. Thus the president is expected to get up to 40% in Anambra, Abia, Ebonyi, Imo and Enugu States.

But a week is a long time in politics. A lot can still happen. That would depend on the parties and their presidential candidates.

Read below a Nairalaner Opinion

To an extent, I agree with Leadership's analysis but the southeast projection is far off the mark. PMB will win d North west comfortably...... Forget the Kwankwaso factor. The only time Buhari and Kwankwaso were ever on the same page politically was 2015..... And we both know PMB has always won Kano before then. Where was the Kwankwaso factor? As an incumbent PDP governor, Buhari's ANPP sponsored and defeated Kwankwaso with Shakarau(A recently retired civil servant) in 2003.....I predict a 65-35 per cent victory in favor of Buhari in d North West.
In the North East, I predict a comfortable win for Buhari in Gombe, Borno, Bauchi and Yobe. Adamawa is kinda harder to predict but I see an Atiku victory.... With a max of 15-20 per cent winning margin. Due to a host of factors (the state of APC in Taraba, it's religious and tribal setup, e.t.c) Atiku will comfortably win Taraba albeit with Buhari clinching 15-25 percent of votes. Overall, Buhari will win the NorthEast.
The herdsmen-farmers issue has eroded a lot of the goodwill Buhari enjoyed from the NorthCentral in 2015.... But Samuel Ortom's poor performance will create a leeway for Buhari in Benue state.... But I predict Atiku to carry the day with 60 percent of votes cast in Benue. Kwara is another area where Atiku can bank on winning.... Despite the OTOGE clamour, I don't see Buhari getting more than 40 percent of votes in Kwara.... Despite Yahaya Bello's ineptitude, PMB will most likely carry the day in Kogi. This has more to do with the goodwill Buhari enjoys in the State than the stellar performance of the APC led state govt. I really have nothing to say about Niger, Nasarrawa and the FCT. The southwest will throw up another issue entirely.... I expect Lagos to be a close run affair with APC carrying the day with a slight margin..... Apart from Lagos where the PDP will most likely give the APC a run for it's money, I see APC winning other 5 SouthWestern states comfortably. Buhari can expect more votes from the South South than he got in 2015. In EDO, I predict a Buhari's victory while he'll get at least 25 percent of votes in Delta and Akwa-Ibom states. Bayelsa and Rivers are a different story as Buhari will struggle to even get 5 percent in both states. As for the SouthEast, Buhari may be able to poll between 5 to 10 percent of votes. The voters strenght of The core north added to that of the southwest and with improved performance in the SouthSouth makes a Buhari's second term a possibility.... This is politics tho, anything can happen


My reasons for the Above assertion: The past 3 years have witnessed significant growth in the agricultural sector...... The fertiliser revolution has led to increased agricultural yield and with this, expect majority of North Western and Eastern votes for Buhari. Tho Boko Haram are still a security threat, they have been significantly decimated when compared to 2015..... Expect block votes for Buhari from Borno and Yobe states.... Another factor that favors Buhari is the Buhari factor. Across the North, Buhari is d most popular politician and he's seen as a friend of the commoners who's incorruptible..... Unlike Atiku who's perceived to be elitist and corrupt. When I see people say Atiku has gotten a foothold in the North because of mamoth crowds in campaign grounds, I shake my head..... A visit to the core north to ascertain the state of things there will reveal a whole lotta things that campaign crowds ain't revealing. Well, in the next 13 days, all this will be laid bare