What to know about Nigeria’s presidential primaries

Nigeria’s main presidential primaries are scheduled to be held this weekend (28 to 30 May), and the most topical election issue in the country is whether the parties will choose their candidates from the north or south. The ‘zoning’ rule implies that power should be transferred to the south because the outgoing president, Muhammadu Buhari, is from northern Katsina and will have been in office for eight years in 2023. However, southern politicians in the two main parties do not have enough leverage to achieve this outcome. Political capital is concentrated in the north and so the eventual presidential candidates will be decided by that the region’s stakeholders.

Significance - Zoning

Power in Nigeria oscillates between the mostly Muslim north and largely Christian south every two terms or eight years, but presidential elections have effectively been decided in the north since civilian rule was restored in 1999. For example, ex-president Goodluck Jonathan’s defeat in 2015 was chiefly due to his fallout with the northern elite after he breached an agreement to serve for only one term and allow his People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to return power to the north, which had prematurely lost it in 2010 when Umar Yar’adua died in office. This hegemony is again in force now that the outgoing president Buhari is finishing his second four-year term and southern politicians are looking to get their turn.

The main opposition PDP and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) are reluctant to field a southern candidate for the next presidential election for fear they would lose the election should one of them choose a northern candidate. Northern politicians in the PDP believe the party lost power in 2015 because Jonathan ran against a strong northern figure in Buhari, who won by a landslide in the region. For instance, 76% of votes from the northwest went to Buhari in that year’s presidential election.[1] The north’s superior electoral figures were again decisive when Buhari won re-election in 2019. Nine of the 10 states that produced the most votes in that election are in the north. This data gives southern politicians little leverage in invoking the zoning rule, and so the PDP resolved last month to abandon zoning and throw open its nomination process for this year’s election.

The ruling APC has now taken its cue from that resolution. Southern APC aspirants such as Bola Tinubu and Chibuike Amaechi were previously the party’s frontrunners ahead of the primary this weekend, but northern heavyweights such as Senate President Ahmed Lawan are now firmly in contention. This twist is potentially divisive for the party considering its history. Buhari had lost three consecutive presidential elections between 2003 and 2011 despite his popularity in the north, but it was his alliance with Tinubu in the southwest that led to the formation of the APC in 2014 and his victory the following year. Now, Tinubu and the southwest believe it is their turn to take power in reward for helping Buhari win two terms. An extension of the north’s hold on power potentially for eight more years (totaling 16) was not envisaged when the APC was created – or even when the party chose new executives in March this year. The party chair was picked from the north with the understanding that the presidential nominee would be from the south.

Outlook – Ballot

Buhari is the dominant figure in the ruling APC. This means the party will defer to him and a primary will be a formality if he selects the presidential nominee before a vote. After the president, the second set of decision-makers who will determine the party’s flagbearer are state governors who control the treasury in their state and therefore fund the party at that level. Thirteen of the 19 northern states are governed by the APC, and one of these governors will likely emerge vice-presidential candidate if the flagbearer is chosen from the south. For the PDP, Atiku Abubakar (northern Adamawa) is expected to win the nomination. The former vice president is the most experienced aspirant in the opposition party having competed in every election cycle since 1993. He will likely choose a running mate from the oil-producing Niger Delta where the party runs five out of six states. Looking ahead at the 2023 contest itself, theoretically, the ongoing voter registration could change the shape of the electorate in significant ways – the Independent National Electoral Commission has set itself the goal of enrolling 20 million new voters. However, the deadline for the exercise is 30 June and at the time of writing only 5.8 million had been completed.  

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[1] Nigeria 2015 presidential election results (2015). Reuters.