Population plays a major role in democracy being the government of the people by the people and for the people. Also your spread across the states to be able to garner the required 25% in at least 24 states. All these requires serious calculations, knowledge of the game and reflection.
This is just to explain to Obidients and other interest groups who clearly participated in elections for the first time, and others who might participate in the future, or just ordinary Nigerians who are interested in democracy and politics who believe Nigeria's elections were rigged.
As a follower of Nigeria's politics, I have come to realise some truisms that politics is deep and require serious calculations in order to win.
1. Winning your region is no guarantee at all for you to win the Presidential election, in fact you might need more support from outside your region to win regardless of the region you're from and the prevailing circumstances of the time.
2. Without alliances, across North & South, you are deemed to fail because constitutionally you cannot garner the required votes and the spread to win.
This is because of the electoral laws that guarantee majority of votes and spread to be declared winner.
In 1979, Obafemi Awolowo was scoring 92% in Ogun, 95% in Ondo, but how did he fare in other regions? However, he scored 7% in Kaduna, less than 3% in Sokoto, Bauchi, Benue, Kano.
Unsurprisignly, he lost to Shehu Shagari who had a larger spread, the numbers and much more allies at the time across the country, Nothing Changes today.
Muhammadu Buhari is another very important example in our recent history, his followers have always maintained that the Daura born General has been winning the election but PDP was rigging him out. Despite the fact that he had near fanatical support in NW/NE between 2003-2011, he was always coming short everytime, because he had less than 1% in many States in the South, constitutionally he cannot win the election due to lack of national spread.
The tally on INEC's voters' register shows that, it was NW, SW, NC, SS, NE, SE in descending other by population, so any politician who knows his onion and really wants to win the election must be mindful of the above.
Which means you stand a bigger chance winning in NW because that's where most of the votes comes from than other regions, the SE for example which has the least number of voters and is the stronghold of the Obidients.
Good! So, lets explore.
Bola Tinubu 'lost' Sokoto, Kebbi, Katsina. Yet, he scored 48%, 44%, 45% respectively, yet close extermination shows that 48% from the Northwest will give you more votes than 95% from other regions with fewer number of registered voters.
Now consider the case of Northwest's most populous state and the second most populous state in Nigeria, Bola Tinubu scored just 29% of Kano's votes. Yet, it amounted to 506,412!
Peter Obi and his Labour Party had 93% of Enugu's votes at 428,640 that's worth looking into because 29% of Kano's votes is greater than 93% of Enugu's votes.
Of the regions, Bola Tinubu won the three biggest vote blocs. NW, SW, NC. He came Second in NE, SS.
Peter Obi on the other hand failed to achieve 25% in 24 states across the country, meaning he failed to meet a critical constitutional requirement to win the election. Does it now make logical sense to you as to why Obi lost the election, and Bola Tinubu won? Is that thought of rigging?
The party with the better groundgame won it fair and square, the election wasn't rigged, your calculations was flawed as simple as that.
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