TheCable

On Tuesday, Abdullahi Ganduje, governor of Kano, promised to deliver five million votes from the state to President Muhammadu Buhari if he seeks re-election in 2019.

Though Buhari has not officially declared his intentions for 2019, there are signs that he may decide to remain the number one citizen beyond 2019.

After visiting Kano in December 2017, Buhari said the massive reception he received is a “clear message to the opposition” that his popularity in the region remains unshaken.

“I am overwhelmed with the massive reception I have received and definitely since this is partisan politics, I think it has sent a clear message to the opposition,” he had said.

“Even going by the details of the election results in 2003, 2007 and 2011, it was very clear that nobody could even dare to rig my scores from the elections in Kano.”

Yahaya Bello, governor of Kogi, was also quoted to have said that Buhari will get more votes from the north-central state than his Katsina hometown should he contest in 2019.

Buhari will almost certainly get million of votes from Kano; even the president knows that.

The big question, however, is: how realistic is it that five million Kano voters will vote for Buhari  in 2019?

A critical look at the election results in 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2015 does not favour Ganduje’s claims.

2011 AND 2015

In the 2011 presidential election, a total of 2,673,228 valid votes were cast in Kano. Of that number, Buhari, under the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), polled 1,624, 543 votes.

Buhari got his highest number of votes from Kano, closely followed by Katsina at 1,163,919 votes. In the entire north-west zone, he got 3,395,724 votes — not up to 5 million.

The highest number of votes for a single candidate in the year was  1,817,762, polled by ex-President Goodluck Jonathan in Rivers state.

In the most recent 2015 elections that brought Buhari to power, he polled 1,903,999 votes in Kano out  of 2,172,447 votes cast in the state.

2003 AND 2007

In 2003, there were 4,072,597 registered voters in Kano while the total votes cast stood at 2,339,792.

Then under the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), Buhari polled 1,628,085.

In 2007, Buhari polled 6,605,299 votes in total from all states in the country.

NEVER HAD 5M VOTES IN ONE STATE, NO ONE EVER HAS

Given the statistics, Buhari has never polled up to five million votes from a state in the four consecutive elections he contested. No other candidate has ever polled five million votes from a single state in the history of Nigeria’s elections.

CONCLUSION

It is very much unlikely, despite his popularity in Kano, that Buhari will poll five million votes from the state. Except Ganjude knows something not known to the electoral history of Nigeria.