by Salihu Tanko Yakasai

….Never in the history of our nation has the office of the president been humiliated and disgraced publicly like it has under GEJ. If Governors can publicly walk out on the president on live TV during the staged convention of the PDP, then I wonder what goes on behind closed doors, your guess is as good as mine.

In my short history in politics, and from other experiences I’ve gained over the years, I have practically become an unofficial political analyst, with so many of my friends coming to me, or calling me to digest the political permutations going on in the country. Sometimes I get it wrong but most of. the time I get it right. My point is, if I as an ordinary lay man can do these political calculations and accurately predict how the game will end, then what’s stopping Jonathan from doing so?

President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan did NOT fall from the sky straight down into the Villa. This is someone that went through the positions of a Deputy Governor, Governor, Vice President and now President, consecutively! This is someone who is surrounded by so much privileged information of all the happenings in the country, GEJ can know when you’ll divorce your wife before you do, if he wants to. This is someone that is supposed to have so many heads as advisers, ministers and other positions (like Mr Fix it and co) just to make his work easier. Yet, his decisions always leave you wondering what the heck is this guy thinking?

The current brouhaha rocking the PDP which has split it into the old PDP and the new PDP is glaring for all to see. I have always insisted that the governors in Nigeria have always held the political key since 2003 to date, and 2015 won’t be any different. It is a lose-lose situation for GEJ, in as much as they are against him. How can GEJ not see the writing on the wall? Never in the history of our nation has the office of the president been humiliated and disgraced publicly like it has under GEJ. If Governors can publicly walk out on the president on live TV during the staged convention of the PDP, then I wonder what goes on behind closed doors, your guess is as good as mine.

If GEJ has done his political arithmetic well, the first scenario he ought to have foreseen is that, in all the six geopolitical zones, all the influential governors from these zones are NOT with him. If you take my zone, North-West, Kwankwaso, Lamido and Wamakko from Kano, Jigawa and Sokoto respectively, are not with him. Take North-East, Bauchi as a state is influential, but its Governor can’t even control his people let alone anyone from the zone. That leaves you with Baba Mai Mangoro (Nyako) and to some degree, Shettima of Maiduguri. When you go up to North-Central, Niger State and Kwara are NOT with GEJ. In South-West, Fashola is anti-GEJ as well as the entire zone. South-East, it’s Rochas and he is in the opposition. South-South which is even the GEJ’s zone, they have three powerful governors, Amaechi, Oshiomole and Akpabio. The 1st two are not with GEJ. In this scenario, how then, does the President expect to win with such huge odds against him?

Then comes scenario two: PDP has 23 governors out of the 36 in the country. 15 of the 23 are in the North, with the remaining 10 in South-East and South-South. By this, the north has always been the safe-haven for PDP, out of its 19 governors, 15 are from the PDP, leaving only 4 to the opposition. But with the birth of the New PDP, which currently has 7 governors, 6 of which are from the North, add that to the already existing 4 in the opposition which makes 10 anti-GEJ governors from the region. And I can bet my life, that out of those remaining 9, especially the first “termers”, when the time is right, they’ll come out of the closet.

If you translate these into actual number of voters from each geopolitical zone, the North West has 19.2million voters, South West has 14.1million voters, North East has 11million voters, North Central has 10million, South South with 9.5million voters and South East with 8million voters. From my second scenario above, when you add the votes of North West and South West that’s about 47% of the votes. Indeed, this math is as black and white, but then again, GEJ doesn’t give a damn and the only calculations he is concentrating all his energy on, is how to rig.

These are just some of the many political calculations being played out, right under Mr President’s nose, if only he’ll see it. Oga GEJ has his work cut out for him, if the status-quo is maintained, then the humiliation the “rebel governors” are going through in his party, will come to him ten folds come 2015. He will receive the shocker of his life after the elections WHEN he loses, that it’ll make him sober from his power-drunkenness for the past few years. The Kenyans have a saying, “Feet cannot stop one from going into danger.” In GEJ’s case, his feet are already deep in danger, but it seems, Mr President’s calculations are telling him he is in heaven. Mr President, you need a new math teacher!

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Tanko Yakasai is a proud husband and father of two. He is a broadcaster with Freedom Radio, Kano. Yakasai believes in the unity and development of Nigeria, which paved his way into community activities through NGOs in transforming our society for the better. He is a registered member of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC).

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.