Good People, I want to apologize for a blown prediction now that Senator Tinubu has picked a VP partner for the presidency. On Oct 1, 2018, I wrote here that APC will nominate Tinubu in 2022. In that piece, I also noted that Buhari will win in 2019. And in the same piece, I also wrote that Ebonyi State governor, Engr David Umahi, will win his re-election in 2019 with PDP and after some months will decamp to APC. Those things have since happened.
But I got something wrong: I said that Tinubu will pick David Umahi as his running mate. With BAT picking Senator Kashim Shettima of Borno today, the implication is that my call there was wrong. Sure – there is no reason to explain what happened. The simple thing is that I got it wrong. We will keep improving.
You can read that old piece here
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Comment 1: If you said that as a prediction, you got it terribly wrong. Predicting that Buhari and Umahi would win did not require empirical analysis, or any serious analysis at all, by hook or by crook, it would naturally happen given the level of our political maturity and fledgling democracy. If you had added “through free, fair and credible election” as a plausible caveat, your prediction would probably not happen.
Now on the issue of your prediction on Tinubu picking Dave Umahi as his running mate, that’s the most immature political prediction I have ever heard. It shows a belief not consistent with the most basic elements of our social and political dynamics. On what basis would anyone predict that such would happen in the present day Nigeria? On the basis of efficient political strategy for victory or the new found, albeit illusionary, southern solidarity? It would not make any political sense at all.
My Response: You did all NOT to acknowledge the political sagacity that a PDP Vice Chair (Umahi) will win in his party and decamp to another party more than a year before it happened. That BAT would win the APC primary more than 3.5 years before it happened. You avoided those to focus on my easy “predictions” or one I got wrong. There is no need to explain a bad call. But 3 things which I expected to have happened did not come through. One in PDP and two in APC. Had those happened, the “CAN’T” would have become CAN.
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Why did you think you got the call wrong? Naa, you didn’t, you got it right, albeit in inverted format. Why did people feel that someone from SW picking a running mate from SE wouldn’t make sense politically? Because it would alienate the northerners, right? Well, A SW Muslim picking a NE Muslim equally alienates Christians in Nigeria. If the former holds, the latter holds too, anyone who believes otherwise will win the biggest hypocrisy trophy in the land.
So, your call was spot on joor.
We love experiments and bold calls, until we fly Christian-Christian ticket, then the political narrative will magically recalibrate. Nigeria has a lot of smart people, and most of them are not found within the political space, but they can easily deconstruct every political gimmick put out there.
The PDP told us that zoning is no longer relevant, the APC was very honourable in that department, but is now telling us that religion doesn’t matter anymore.
Ladies and gentlemen, I love experiments more than anything, because I enjoy thinking and doing something new every single day. I only ask God for long life for all of us, to live out all the experiments our politicians are inventing in the year 2022!
May you all live in interesting times.