In an election that held no surprises whatsoever, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu yesterday defeated his lone challenger, Stanley Osifo, in the All Progressives Congress(APC) presidential primaries to clinch the party’s ticket for the 2027 general elections.

The president polled 10,999, 162 votes to beat his lone challenger, who polled 16, 503, in the direct primary elections which held across the country on Saturday.

The chairman of the party’s Presidential Electoral Committee and former Secretary to the Federal Government of Nigeria, Pius Anyim, who gave the breakdown of results, said the president beat Stanley Osifo, in all the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT)

The scores President Tinubu polled in the primary alone is more than what he scored in the 2023 general elections that brought him to power. It would be recalled that the president secured a total of 8,794,726 votes in the last general elections.

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His closest rival then, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) polled a total of 6,984,520 votes in the election while Peter Obi of the Labour Party came third with a total of 6,101,533 votes and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso of the NNPP came fourth with 1,496,687 votes.

Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu (first left) leading his constituents in Bende Ward, Bende Federal Constituency during the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential primary in Abia State

Justifying the votes

Anyim, who announced the results of the primary elections said unlike before where a select group of heavily courted delegates decided the fate of the party behind closed doors, this election relied entirely on the direct primary system.

“By this groundbreaking model, the APC has become the first political party to adopt the direct primary election model for its presidential primary election,” Anyim declared.

Speaking on the controversies that have been trailing the party’s primaries, the National Chairman of the party, Nentawe Yilwatda, argued that internal complaints are signs of political health and dismissed opposition narratives, saying that is why he believes the APC remains the only viable vehicle for Nigeria’s political future.

‘’If you look at the mass turnout we witnessed just yesterday in all the congresses held to nominate our presidential candidate, the numbers were staggering—they were in their thousands. This is just a mock demonstration of what the general election will look like. It shows clearly that no other party can win the upcoming election because the numbers turning out for us are unmatched. Believe me, no political party in this country can showcase even one-tenth of what we presented in our own congresses. It is proof that we are on the path—and it is the winning path,’’ he said.

Our correspondent reports that the president was later presented with the certificate and the flag of the party to run the 2027 presidential race.

Though the primary that produced the candidates for the 2023 presidential elections was through indirect primaries, where only delegates participated and statutory delegates were barred, the turnout was a far cry from the figures currently being posted in the direct primaries conducted by the APC.

Then, aspirant Bola Ahmed Tinubu polled 1,271 votes to defeat his closest rival, Rotimi Amaechi, who scored a total of 316 votes. The then Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo and President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, scored 235 and 152 votes, respectively.

Who is Stanley Osifo?

The 50-year-old Stanley Osifo, Tinubu’s challenger in the contest is a businessman, who hails from Oluku Ward in Ovia North-East LGA of Edo State.

He attended Payne Primary School, Benin City, Edokpolo Grammar School, Benin City and the Lagos State University, where he obtained both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Christian Religious Studies.

In 2O18, he joined the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and in 2O19, he attempted to contest in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential primaries.

He bought the nomination form and canvassed delegates but was eventually denied participation. And in 2O22, he joined the All Progressives Congress (APC)

On April 28, Osifo paid N100 million for the APC presidential form to challenge President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Our correspondent who was at the venue when Osifo picked his presidential form reports that a mild drama ensued.

Daily Trust gathered that he was asked to wait for several minutes while officers made several calls before the form was issued to him.

Speaking at a press conference after obtaining the form in Abuja, Osifo described himself as a patriotic Nigerian with a vision to position the country among the world’s leading economies.

He said his ambition is anchored on integrity and a solid understanding of global economic recovery models and that economic stability and security are central to national development.

The higher the figures, the higher the loyalty level?

Our correspondents report that governors, lawmakers and appointees of the president, in their respective states appeared like they were in a contest to outdo one another in posting high figures for Tinubu, even though Osifo, according to analysts posed no threat to the president. The governors and appointees, aside mobilising people to turn out, were seen in some instances leading the queues of voters while holding banners with the president’s photograph. Some acted as the chief returning officers of the election also.

Daily Trust reports that the lone aspirant, apart from buying the nomination and expression of interest forms, did not do much to sell himself to party members.

He was hardly seen in any of the 36 states, just as there was no aggressive media campaign to show that he was seeking to unseat an incumbent president. His approach made many to believe that either he was not ready to go the whole hog or he was fielded to give the contest some a semblance of internal democracy.

Scores in states

Our correspondents report that Tinubu scored 414,988 in Borno State in the just concluded primary election of the party. While in the 2023 general elections, he secured only 252, 282. Which is almost two times what he scored then.

In Adamawa State, President Tinubu got 644,149 votes while he polled 104,833 votes in the general elections in 2023, which included all Nigerians.

In Gombe, for the primary election, he secured 450,517,but in the 2023 elections, he scored only 146,977 votes.

In Rivers State, in the 2023 general elections, Tinubu scored 231,591 votes but scored 280,082 votes last Saturday.

In Ogun, the 2023 election results showed 341,554 votes while the just concluded primary posted 322,485 votes

In Lagos, the 2023 election result showed that Tinubu polled 572, 606 votes but on Saturday, he secured 814,988 votes in the primaries.

In Ondo State, however, Tinubu scored 181, 966 votes in APC 2026 primary election, but in the 2023 general election, he scored 361,944

Imo State governor, Hope Uzodinma and his wife, Chioma (standing behind) leading members of the APC in the state for the party’s presidential primary election

Tinubu’s rival in primary election not a serious contender —Prof Ojo

A political scientist, Prof. Emmanuel Ojo, said Stanley Osifo, who ran against President Tinubu in the Saturday APC primaries, was not a serious contender.

“The person who challenged him must have been there just for the sake of it. He was not a serious aspirant, because that person did not campaign in Oyo State, he did not campaign in Ogun State, no posters, no radio jingles, nothing. Not even television or newspaper adverts to tell anybody that he’s competing.

“Apart from the fact that he went to obtain a nomination form, he’s not a serious candidate,” Ojo said.

He, however, noted that candidate selection is different from a general election, where, he said, the real acceptability of the candidate will be tested.

“Candidate selection within a party is quite different from a general election. That’s the truth. Candidate selection using direct primary, you can claim that 20 million voted for you in your party. When the general election comes, we will see how popular that candidate and the party are,” Ojo said.

Speaking on Tinubu, he described him as a strategist and politician with a domineering personality, whom he said began his re-election bid right from the first day in office as president.

“Tinubu, no doubt, is a strategist. From the day he was sworn in as president, from day one, he started the journey to a second term.

“And within the party, he is a domineering personality, which made it difficult for anybody to confront him. They are waiting for him to complete his second term. Aside that, there is the informal power-sharing arrangement in Nigeria, in terms of the president coming from the North at one time and the South at another time, things like that.

“So, people are waiting for him to complete his second term within the party,” he said.

Speaking with Daily Trust, the President of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR), Comrade Yinka Folarin, said the APC probably stage-managed Stanley Osifo as Tinubu’s rival to “show the exercise’s seriousness.”

He, however, maintained that the primary remains an internal affair of the party.

“In this contest, I would think it is all stage-managed, just to convince the people that they are prepared for the general elections and that they are following due process.

“However, it is still part of democracy; it is their internal affair, it is the internal affair of their political party.

“But Nigerians should not be deceived by that, because we have seen the situation where the party came out openly and said that they granted the president a waiver from the screening, and I wouldn’t know if that was also done for the acclaimed co-contestant, Osifo.”

Folarin questioned the figures from the primaries, which, according to him, in some states doubled Tinubu’s margin of votes during the 2023 election in those areas.

“Some of the figures are quite laughable, because you can see a situation where, in the last election, some states had not more than three hundred and something thousand votes against their co-contestants in the state. They had that to win the election, but now we can see figures from the political party alone doubling the last recorded statistics of victory.

“So, I think there are many things to question, and it is for both the opposition parties and the entire stakeholders as far as the election is concerned.

“Let’s be watchful, and we are also monitoring the opposition parties. Maybe they will also come up and say they have recorded millions of votes in the conduct of the election. The scores will be settled on the field,” he said.

A political analyst in Edo State, Prof Eddy Erhagbe, said for Stanley Osifo, obtaining the All Progressives Congress presidential form and his name being on the ballot of his party as presidential aspirant, is a testament or a statement to the fact that he contested for the position of a party’s presidential candidate.

He said based on the party’s consensus arrangement one would have expected that since the person contesting against the president is a political neophyte, who has not even contested a local government chairman position, he should have been discouraged from going through with the process.

The professor of Political Science at the University of Benin, noted that Osifo contesting the primary with President Bola Tinubu made the exercise to look like a political contest.

“To me, it was just to show that there was contest, but I don’t think it is a true reflection of what the political temperature is,” he said.

On his part, Dr Kelly Odaro, a lecturer at the Auchi Polytechnic, described Osifo’s involvement in the exercise as symbolic.

“As it is now, to his family, friend and the public, it is on history that he has contested primary election with a sitting president, “ he said.

Associate Professor Sa’idu Ahmad Dukawa, a Political Scientist at Bayero University Kano (BUK), described the exercise as nothing more than “political drama.”

He argued that the ruling party merely staged a show to create the impression of competition, while in reality, the outcome had already been predetermined.

“I think it is a political drama which APC played in an attempt to deceive onlookers, at home and abroad, by pretending that a sort of competition had taken place. But I think they only ended up deceiving themselves,” he said.

He recalled that APC governors had earlier announced a unanimous endorsement of Bola Ahmed Tinubu as their sole candidate, making the conduct of a primary election appear contradictory.

Dukawa further noted that the federal government’s posture towards opposition parties made it “astonishing” to suggest that Tinubu had any real challenger within the APC.

“No right-thinking Nigerian will pay a hundred million naira to purchase form and contest a so-called primary election with Tinubu. So the entire equation did not add up,” he added.

On the broader message of the primaries, the scholar warned Nigerians to be vigilant, suggesting that the process could be a rehearsal for what will happen during the general elections.

“I can’t remember ever witnessing something of that nature. One message Nigerians should get from this drama is that a Kangaroo election is possible and may be extended to the general election. So, Nigerians should be on the lookout,” Dukawa said.