By Toye Olori
LAGOS, Apr 19 2003 (IPS)

-As enthusiastic voters Saturday trooped out in large numbers to vote in the country’s Presidential elections and select who will rule them for the next four years, political analysts have predicted victory for incumbent President, Olusegun Obasanjo.

Contenders in the race for the Presidential villa in Abuja are 39 aspirants, including Obasanjo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), General Muhammadu Buhari of the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) and Odumegwu Ojukwu, who led the move by Igbos of Eastern Nigeria in 1966, to secede. Two women, Mojisola Obasanjo and Sarah Jubril are also contesting.

The other favourite for the top seat is General Buhari but analysts here say the odds favour Obasanjo whose party had entered into a pact with the Alliance for Democracy (AD), the third major party in the country, which did not field any presidential candidate for this election.

The alliance has led to a major upset recorded in the South-west where the PDP swept almost all parliamentary seats except those of Lagos State, the only state still being held onto by the AD after last Saturday’s parliamentary polls.

The analysts predict that four of the six zones that the country is divided into, will go to President Obasanjo who is expected to be re-elected.

Unlike last weekend when heavy rains resulted in delays in voting in the parliamentary elections Saturday’s Presidential elections began kicked off to a flying start as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) reported that thousands of voters, both men and women, queued peacefully to cast their votes.

Some people who registered in Lagos but have moved out of the state or the council areas, returned to the state Friday evening to enable them cast their votes in the presidential and gubernatorial polls which they described as very important.

”This is a very important election that will affect our lives so I have to come back here where I registered to vote,” Ronke Omonike, who returned from college in neighbouring Ogun state to cast her vote, told IPS.

Reports from other parts of the country also showed that officials and voting materials arrived early at most polling centres, where voters were already waiting to cast their votes. In Abuja where voters are voting for only a president, reports say despite the heavy downpour last night and the flooded streets, residents trooped out as early to cast their votes.

Reports from the northern state of Nassarawa, say materials, security officers and officials of INEC arrived early while voter turn-out was massive, but there were complaints of inadequate ballot boxes.

In the Enugu state, eastern Nigeria, where violence was recorded in last weeks parliamentary polls, security is said to be very tight and analysts say this has forced many people to leave the capital resulting in a low turn-out at polling centres.

For the elections to select governors, 229 persons are reported to be vying for the position in 36 states of the federation, most of them incumbents who may not be re-elected because of poor performances in the last four years.

According to analysts the North-eastern zone will be tough as the battle will be between the PDP, ANPP and AD which are expected to be electorally visible, but they predict tat the PDP will likely have a 70 to 30 per cent electoral results in its favour because of the Vice President Atiku Abubakar who is from the zone.

In the North-west, the major battle will be between the PDP and ANPP. Though the polls favour the ANPP, the PDP will do well with President Obasanjo garnering many votes, they say.

The major political parties in the South-eastern zone are the PDP, ANPP, UNPP, NDP and the APGA. Analysts predict that the PDP would take Abia, Ebonyi and Imo states while Enugu and Anambra states would be shared between the PDP, UNPP, APGA and ANPP, but President Obasanjo is expected to beat all the other candidates in the zone, while Ojukwu and Buhari will also receive substantial votes.

The South-South is regarded as the red zone of the electoral contest because of bitterness and acrimony among the gubernatorial candidates in the various parties standing elections in the area. However, the analysts say in the Presidential election in the zone, the PDP and ANPP are expected to be the dominant parties.

The South-western zone, Obasanjo’s region, where five of six states in the zone was captured by the PDP in last weekend’s parliamentary elections, President Obasanjo is likely to receive as high as 95 per cent of the votes. The PDP had performed woefully in the zone in 1999 but things have changed.

President Obasanjo is expected to win high votes even in Lagos where the PDP won only two House of Representatives seats, because of a pact between the AD and the PDP and also because Obasanjo is of the Yoruba ethnic group.

The North central zone, according to the analysts, will be split between the PDP and ANPP, but President Obasanjo is favoured to win the zone.

Obasanjo first became head of state in 1976, when the military ruler, Murtala Muhammad, was murdered. As his deputy, Obasanjo was automatically elevated and at the time he promised to hold elections and step aside and he did. He retired and took up chicken farming. He re-joined the political scene in 1999 following the death the previous year of Sani Abacha.(ENDS/IPS/AF/WA/IP/TO/SM/03)

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