By Olusegun Olurin
Segun Olurin
On Tuesday 21st of February barely 50 hours to the presidential election, Terry Ikimu, the presenter of Political Paradigm on Channels Television robustly engaged one Dr Betta Edu with strong but slippery and tricky questions; and I suspect with a view to overwhelm and perplex her. But lo and behold, Terry, a well prepared and a brilliant communicator was charmed and chagrined by this rising political star from Cross River State.
This lead to the question; Who is Dr. Betta Edu? Why has APC left her communication skills unused to the last minutes for deployment?
As a political analyst and a forecaster of elections, I have had to scout every bit of information from the social media, press releases, radio and television interviews , opinions of seasoned editors, and I have investigated the structures of major parties and leading candidates in the presidential, national assembly and governorship elections in order to detect patterns and come to certain conclusions.
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However, when I watched the interview or should I call it “interrogation” of Dr. Edu on the Channels Television I (like many others who saw it) have no doubts that, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu will win the 2023 presidential election with good margin.
Before the Political Paradigm interview, I have only seen Dr. Betta Edu on B.A.T campaign trail. However, immediately after the interview, I found out that she is a highly skilled professional, a Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health in Cross River State, and also the chairman of the Nigeria Health Commissioners Forum.
Now, when I found out that she is a member of All Progressive Congress (APC) Reconciliation Committee, I quickly placed a phone call to a highly placed Ogun State member of the Reconciliation Committee in the state in regards to her abilities as exercised in the state.
The answer was immediate and stunning. I was told that “not only was she fair minded and objective, she seemed readily prepared and a repository of knowledge’’
Mr Terry Ikimu whose command of English language is top notch and showed great skill in couching tricky and baiting questions yet he failed utterly to trap her. Dr. Edu did not only ‘tell’, she used picture words to ‘show’ why Tinubu will win the election decisively.
For example, she painted the picture of a fit man by vividly describing how Tinubu worked a tight schedule sleeping at 3am to get back on the campaign trail by 9am.Again she showed how Senator Shettima and Governor Zulum managed to bring Borno back to live by informing viewers that on one occasion, they got to Maiduguri at 2am in the little hours of the morning and went to their sleeping apartments without the fear of Boko Haram. Again, she showed honestly, when the issue of Supreme Court Order came into play by using a poignant rhetoric that every citizen of Nigeria should obey the Supreme Court Order, ruling or judgement.
Without much ado, Dr. Betta Edu cut the arguments of the so called ‘’run off’’ being promoted by Arise Television and the notion of Opinion Polls pressed up by Terry Ikimu to smithrens by demonstrating first that Peter Obi’s Labour party did not have offices or presences in any ward in her local government and in many northern states. She also put forward evidence based argument that the PDP presidential candidate is not able to hold his party together and sited the issue of the 5 “integrity governors” that remained unsolved barely 48 hours to election.
In forecasting, certain elements play great roles in shaping decisions. One of them is candidate’s branding. Late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Late M.K.O Abiola chose caps as their branding symbols. So, in 1999 or thereabout, Tinubu also adopted cap as his symbol. Name recognition is also important. Through constant and continuous engagements, both friendly and adversarial; Tinubu’s name is well known. It is also critical for competent election forcasters to examine structures built by serious candidates and the political party upon which platform he or she is contesting.
PDP and APC has formidable platforms and Tinubu by far, has the most enduring, and well serviced human, and corporate structures, of the four major candidates.
Again, a forcaster should play with figures and personalities at least in critical local government areas and at state levels. For examples, Kebbi state which has 2,032,041 registered voters is likely to be carried by PDP by about 50% because of the defection of Sen. Adamu Aileru and Senator Yaya Abdulahi. The combination of the duo has dented the chances of APC on the state. Also, Kogi State has 1,912,654 registered voters. Meanwhile, the factor of the Deputy governor, and Hon. Faleke and Gov.Yaya Bello himself rendered Kogi state untakeable for the PDP, talk less of Labor party with zero presence in the 7 most populated crucial local governments. The APC grip is almost impossible to overwhelm by any other political party.
Meanwhile, I also gleaned from the platform of the APC State Secretaries in the 36 state that they had been working with 8,812 Ward Secretaries and 176, 846 Unit Secretaries all having a minimum of 7 person executive committee managing their door to door campaign. That means, this structure alone has 259 persons at state level, 5,418 persons at local government level, 61,684 persons at ward level and 1,237,922 in all Units of the 36 States and F.C.T. In all the efforts of the State, LG, Ward and Unit Secretaries, you have 1,305,283 persons activity engaged in mobilizing votes for Asiwaju Tinubu and Senator Shettima. If you now open up the efforts of the presidential campaign committee, you will now understand why Asiwaju will win convincingly in the 2023 presidential election.
One more thing must be said with all due respect to the PCC. The choice of Dr.Betta Edu as the APC Women Leader showed thoughtfulness. Such a talent, I hasten to say should also be well considered in the choice of frontline teams that will manage the affairs of Nigeria come May 29, 2023. I forcast a good margin win for Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu in under 50 hours time.
Olusegun Olurin is an analyst and an author. olusegunolurin365@gmail.com
