{"id":19941,"date":"2018-08-06T19:51:49","date_gmt":"2018-08-06T19:51:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=19941"},"modified":"2018-08-06T19:51:49","modified_gmt":"2018-08-06T19:51:49","slug":"bloomberg-waning-support-in-nigerias-north-poses-vote-risk-for-buhari","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=19941","title":{"rendered":"BLOOMBERG: WANING SUPPORT IN NIGERIA&#8217;S NORTH POSES VOTE RISK FOR BUHARI"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><code><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- www.newsroom247.com.ng --><br \/>\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-2163942495525027\" data-ad-slot=\"1411897411\" data-ad-format=\"auto\" data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins><br \/>\n<script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n<\/script><\/code><\/p>\n<p>FROM: By\u00a0Yinka Ibukun\u00a0and\u00a0Mustapha Muhammad<\/p>\n<p>Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari\u2019s re-election bid is facing a growing challenge as members of his party defect to the opposition and support diminishes in a key region that\u2019s stood by him politically for 15 years: the north.<\/p>\n<p>Home to about 40 percent of the West African nation\u2019s voters, Nigeria\u2019s North East and North West regions have long been Buhari\u2019s bedrock &#8212; he carried them in three failed bids for the presidency, before gaining enough supporters elsewhere in 2015 to win. Now,\u00a0defections from the ruling All Progressives Congress\u00a0have spread to prominent northerners, casting doubt on whether he can secure the 13 states\u2019 backing in February\u2019s ballot.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe perception is that he has more \u2018automatic votes\u2019 than anybody in the vote-rich north,\u201d said Amaka Anku, head of Eurasia Group\u2019s Africa practice. The defection of a key governor last week shows \u201cit may be possible to overcome that edge after all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Buhari, 75, was the first opposition candidate in Nigeria\u2019s history to win power at the ballot box. Elected on a pledge to fix a declining economy, fight corruption and improve security at a time when Islamist group Boko Haram had killed thousands of people, he\u2019s facing trouble as the ruling party\u2019s bitter\u00a0internal rivalries\u00a0take a toll.<\/p>\n<h3>Important Allies<\/h3>\n<p>The top official of Sokoto state last week became the first governor from the 13 key territories to defect, joining others from Benue and Kwara in the separate North Central region. Governors are important allies for a Nigerian presidential candidate due to \u201ctheir ability to deploy all the resources to win votes,\u201d according to Habu Mohammed, head of the political science department at Bayero University in the northern city of Kano.<\/p>\n<p>The loss of such backing may not be the only problem for Buhari, whose record for the past three years is disputed. Critics say his war on graft has been selective and lost credibility &#8212; Nigeria dropped 12 places on Transparency International\u2019s corruption-perceptions index this year &#8212; while recovery from 2016\u2019s economic contraction has been sluggish, with inflation still over 11 percent.<\/p>\n<p><code><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alternativeadvert.com\/show.php?z=30&amp;pl=16812&amp;ad_type=62&amp;rl=180\" width=\"728\" height=\"90\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/code><\/p>\n<h3>Insurgency, Bandits<\/h3>\n<p>Although Boko Haram\u2019s reach in the northeast has reduced under Buhari, attacks continue and the humanitarian situation remains dire, with many schools closed and at least 3.7 million people needing food aid, according to the United Nations.\u00a0Bandits in the north\u2019s Zamfara state\u00a0have also killed more than 300 people this year, and a conflict between crop farmers and herdsmen in North Central is now\u00a0proving deadlier\u00a0than the battle against the Islamists.<\/p>\n<p>Whether Buhari can again carry the north may depend on his linchpin: Kano state. It provided 1.9 million votes, or about 12 percent of his 15 million nationwide total in 2015.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKano is a vote bank,\u201d said Idayat Hassan, executive director of the Abuja-based Centre for Democracy and Development in the capital, Abuja. Even there, the defection of two former state governors, each with a significant following, shows Buhari \u201chas lost political clout,\u201d she said. \u201cHe might win Kano, but not by as many votes as he got last time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The deputy governor of Kano, Hafiz Abubakar, resigned on Sunday. In a letter to his boss, governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, he said his office had been disrespected. Abubakar didn\u2019t say whether he was leaving the APC in the document, a copy of which was seen by Bloomberg.<\/p>\n<h3>Parties Merged<\/h3>\n<p>In Nigerian presidential elections, a candidate needs a majority of overall votes and at least a quarter of ballots in 24 of the country\u2019s 36 states to win without a runoff. Buhari\u2019s northern base was boosted in 2015 when the Action Congress of Nigeria party, which has a strong following in the southwest, merged with Buhari\u2019s then-Congress for Progressive Change to form the APC.<\/p>\n<p>Ayisha Osori, an Abuja-based independent analyst, estimates Buhari\u2019s northern base vote at about 12 million. \u201cHe\u2019s lost a lot of the additional 3 million that he won in the last election &#8212; young professionals, people from the South West and North Central,\u201d she said by phone.<\/p>\n<p>Among the recent string of ruling-party defections have been its spokesman and Senate President Bukola Saraki, Nigeria\u2019s third-highest ranking politician.<\/p>\n<p>All the same, no one\u2019s ruling out an APC victory in 2019. The main opposition People\u2019s Democratic Party is \u201cstill perceived as the party that brought the country into its current situation and also a party that\u2019s been associated with corruption,\u201d Mohammed said.<\/p>\n<h3>PDP Plans<\/h3>\n<p>The PDP, which has yet to name its presidential candidate, intends to field a northerner to try and prevent Buhari winning as much of the area\u2019s vote as he did last time, its spokesman Kola Ologbondiyan said in a March interview.<\/p>\n<p>The APC now faces the task of winning back the favor of voters over the next eight months &#8212; which may not be easy.<\/p>\n<p>On the streets of Kano, textile trader Ghali Tanko says he\u2019s voted for Buhari every four years since 2003. Next time, he isn\u2019t so sure.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI had a belief that he could turn the country into a role model, do a lot of work in health, roads and education,\u201d Tanko said. \u201cBut I didn\u2019t see that in his three years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Sheriff-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-19311\" src=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Sheriff-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"741\" height=\"211\" srcset=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Sheriff-1.jpg 1080w, http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Sheriff-1-300x86.jpg 300w, http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Sheriff-1-768x219.jpg 768w, http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Sheriff-1-1024x292.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 741px) 100vw, 741px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- www.newsroom247.com.ng --><br \/>\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-2163942495525027\" data-ad-slot=\"1411897411\" data-ad-format=\"auto\" data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins><br \/>\n<script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n<\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FROM: By\u00a0Yinka Ibukun\u00a0and\u00a0Mustapha Muhammad Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari\u2019s re-election bid is facing a growing challenge as members of his party defect to the opposition and support diminishes in a key region that\u2019s stood by him politically for 15 years: the north. Home to about 40 percent of the West African nation\u2019s voters, Nigeria\u2019s North East [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":19092,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[4959,4960,4499,4396],"class_list":["post-19941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-amaka-anku","tag-habu-mohammed","tag-idayat-hassan","tag-kola-ologbondiyan"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/buhari-buy-1.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-5bD","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19941"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19942,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19941\/revisions\/19942"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}