Tuesday 24 March 2015

NIGERIA Elections Special Report III.

President Goodluck Jonathan regains lost momentum, but opposition still poised for landslide upset win in cliffhanger historic poll   (FULL REPORT and 36 state-by-state statistical model attached)


Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, largest economy and geopolitically most important state, is set to hold its first truly competitive free and fair democratic national elections this Saturday, 28 March. Despite jettisoning the outward trappings of autocratic military rule 15 years ago, the country’s politics largely retained the substantive autocratic diktats of quasi-military rule under the dominant People Democratic Party (PDP). In 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2011 Nigeria held mostly rigged, pre-ordained, non-free, non-fair and non-competitive elections. However due to major electoral reforms, launched by the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, particularly promoting the exclusive use of secure biometric voter ID cards, and unique security verification, the country is poised to hold its first truly open, transparent, free and fair polls on March 28.
The six week postponement of Nigeria’s originally scheduled February 14 presidential elections allowed embattled President Goodluck Jonathan to take several pragmatic steps to claw back lost electoral momentum. However Jonathan’s valiant efforts notwithstanding, after several simulations, DaMina Advisors’s proprietary VERITAS Frontier Markets Electoral Forecast Statistical Model, (reproduced below) continues to still give the odds of an upset victory to opposition leader Retired General Muhammadu Buhari. Despite the bi-variate model’s heavy discount on frontier markets political challengers and favoring incumbency, Buhari still emerges on top. 

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