2023: UK Fitch Solutions Projects Tinubu’s Victory, Warns of Likely Instability
By Idris Umar
The UK-based Fitch Solutions Group has said the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is the most likely to win the 2023 presidential election.
The group, in a report ahead of the election slated for February next year, said many factors pointed towards a Tinubu victory at the polls.
“Indeed, we maintain our view that the ruling party’s Bola Ahmed Tinubu is the candidate most likely to win the presidential election as a split opposition vote will favour the All Progressives Congress,” FSG said.
Among what the group said would grant a Tinubu victory is his performance as governor of Lagos State, the choice of his running mate and the party, APC.
“We expect that the party, which has nominated a Muslim-Muslim ticket, will repeat its strong performance in the North. Given that Tinubu is a former governor of Lagos, the party is also likely to improve on its performance in the South West. Furthermore, we expect Tinubu to benefit from incumbency advantages, with the APC having been in power since 2015,” the report stated.
On recent polls which have been giving victory to Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, the group said the polls were overstating his popularity.
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It further added that the polls were skewed towards the urban few.
The report said: “At Fitch Solutions, we believe that recent polls are significantly overstating support for Peter Obi, the Labour Party candidate running in Nigeria’s February 2023 presidential election. Surveys showing that Obi is ahead of his opponents Bola Tinubu (All Progressives Congress; APC) and Atiku Abubakar (People’s Democratic Party; PDP) were mostly based on responses gathered online. Since only 36.0% of Nigerians use the Internet (World Bank, 2020), we believe that these results are skewed towards urban, affluent voters who are most likely to support Obi.
According to Fitch, victory for Tinubu, would win the election next February, would also end the recent trend of the presidency alternating between Muslims and Christians.
The group however warned that the issue of religion may pose certain threats to the Tinubu Presidency.
“Since Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999, there has been an informal agreement that resulted in the presidency alternating between Northern and Southern states as well as between Christians and Muslims.
“A win for Tinubu would break with this unwritten tradition and likely fuel sentiment of perceived marginalisation among Christians.”
“Protests and social discontent are likely to ramp up in the aftermath of a Tinubu win since this would end the recent trend of the presidency alternating between Muslims and Christians,” the report read in part.