With barely one week to the much awaited Gubernatorial elections – one thing remains clear. The APC appears to have picked up momentum in most states, following the shocking win of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari.

What then does that mean for the situation on the Plateau? Does that mean the APC would create an upset in the very first Plateau Gubernatorial election since the return to democracy in 1999. Well, our analysis shows that the picture is not as clear-cut as many would pre-suppose.

With barely one week to the much awaited Gubernatorial elections – one thing remains clear. APC appears to have picked up momentum in most states, following the shocking win of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari.

What then does that mean for the situation on the Plateau? Does that mean APC would create an upset in the very first Plateau Gubernatorial election since the return to democracy in 1999. Well, our analysis shows that the picture is not as clear-cut as many would pre-suppose.

Results from the just concluded presidential election showed that PDP beat APC in Plateau by a small margin of approx. 120,000 votes. The very first time that the race in Plateau would be as close as that. To put that in context, in 2011, PDP beat APC by over 800,000 votes -meaning that something fundamentally different happened in this election for the result to be so close. Well, many people think the reason why the margin of victory for PDP was that small, was because of what they construe as Goodluck Jonathan’s endorsement of Governor Jang to jettison the zoning arrangement in the state. They argue, that under his watch, another candidate from the Northern zone was selected and endorsed for the plum job – they therefore sought to show their grievance at that decision at the polls.

Like 2011 however, PDP still won all three Senatorial Seats and all the House of Representative Seats except for Jos North/Bassa. So by-and-large, Plateau state has remained a PDP state, but the question remains – to what extend would the electorate go out of their way to express their grievance by voting APC? Well, saturday shall tell.

Interesting, but a few people surveyed have said they are not necessarily voting for Simon Lalong as a candidate, but that they are voting against Jang and his imposition of GNS Pwajok. This statement is quite alarming because it suggests that any consideration of competence or capability to deliver is out of the question and the argument lies squarely around maintaining political balance and equilibrium. Well, that sort of argument in itself may not be a bad thing, but electing someone simply for reasons outside of what they have to offer could be dangerous, because if they fail to deliver -the disappointment will be massive. On the flip side, if the Plateau political equation is unbalanced because an unpopular (but competent) candidate is imposed on the polity – his capacity to delver will also be hampered. So both arguments are quite valid.

GNS Pwajok and Simon Lalong are two fine gentlemen and Plateau is lucky to have them both – lets exercise our civil rights with pride and patriotism.

ViewPointNigeria is currently analysing and dissecting the voting patterns of the just concluded Presidential elections by the respective Local Governments in Plateau, in order to glean critical insights about how people  may vote in the coming gubernatorial. Watch-out for this in the next few days.

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Buhari’s victory can help or hinder APC in Plateau