OPINION: Atiku Did Not Debate! Does it make him lose votes?
Disclaimer: I do not intend to post political views on my Medium page somewhat but I am inspired to write this post from the statistical and analytical point of view for the upcoming elections in Nigeria.
In the early hours of Saturday, 19th of January, a friend called me to inform me that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar won’t be debating.
I asked why and he says Buhari won’t be debating as well as reliably informed and there won’t be a need to debate. I took this news with a pinch of seriousness hoping the story would change when Atiku comes back into the country.
Fast forward into the evening when Atiku arrived at the Nnamdi Azikwe Airport, Abuja amidst fanfare and jubilation, he went to the venue of the debate and we all know the story.
When it was confirmed he was not going to debate — I argued against that move seeing it as one that will largely make him lose votes. I see many people belonging to my class of thought when the news became public.
Now let’s analyze it truly — was the debate worth Atiku’s participation?
Let’s take a look at Nigeria’s literacy rate.
Nigeria adult literacy rate was at a level of 59.6% in 2015, up from 51.1% in 2008 according to CIA World Fact Book.
This implies that a little over half of our population can read and write from age 15 and above.
Now, by standard — this is ideally the population that should be interested in watching, reading and or listening to a debate of Presidential candidates of different political parties in Nigeria. Sadly, the case isn’t the same.
While this literacy rate may look like data that’s quite useful to infer voter enlightenment by virtue of their literacy, let’s take a quick look at the voters’ number in 2015.
There were only 10 states which hit the 1m mark across the country. Now let’s permutate this with the literacy rates of adults in each of these states;
S/NO
STATE
TOTAL VOTES CASTED
LITERACY RATE
1.
Akwa Ibom
1,028,551
79.6%
2.
Bauchi
1,039,775
73.3%
3.
Delta
1,284,848
71.3%
4.
Jigawa
1,071,889
74.1%
5.
Kano
2,172,447
74.1%
6.
Kaduna
1,650,201
72.4%
7.
Katsina
1,481,714
53.3%
8.
Lagos
1,495,975
87.7%
9.
Plateau
1,000,692
71.3%
10.
Rivers
1,584,768
65.0%
Source: Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Summary of Presidential results for 2015
If you take a look at this data critically, you’d discover that only one state out of these 10 states where most votes were cast irrespective of the party had over 80% literacy rate — Lagos! Even Lagos isn’t measuring up to other cities across the globe where literacy rates are ranging from 90% to as high as 99% in the United States.
Now, in order not to go out of context in this piece, assumedly, the debate would be followed in states such as
Lagos — metropolitan and high literacy rate here as well. As expected, it’s the city of the intellectuals
Akwa Ibom — good literacy rate and voters are assumed to be more aware about the political process.
Abuja — Abuja is the capital of Nigeria and there’s a lot of enlightened people doing business there but it doesn’t have the voter numbers to Influence the election.
Delta — a small population of voters would follow the debate here
The rest of the states who turn the highest number of votes won’t give a damn about the debate anyways — there are more platforms to hear what a candidate has to say that they have access to.
Now looking at all of these, has Atiku lost any major voting bloc by refusing to attend any debate if President Buhari doesn’t attend? Your guess is as good as mine.
Israel Oladipupo Ogunseye widely referred to as LadiSpeaks is a Brand Manager in a Fintech startup based in Lagos. Lives iOT, smartphone technology, and Fintech. He is an avid follower of Nigerian politics and an active member of the Peoples Democratic Party in Lag
