2023 Election: Who Likely Becomes The President? —Franklin Daniel

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When it comes to predicting a collective choice, things are very complex. Unlike objects which cannot modify themselves, consequently we are likely to predict them, humans can respond to the environment and cause self-change in themselves. How this self-change will go is probabilistic rather than highly predictable. This also applies to collective choice. Even to many social scientists, they know computational model, which is considered to be advance, sometimes fail.

Nevertheless, collective choice isn’t chaotic. Many factors will determine the outcome of 2023 election. Two of of these factors are region and religion. Perhaps a kind of constitutional or collective consensus, it’s an indisputable fact that Nigeria politics is rotational. Whether this is healthy or not is another debate on its own. But politically Nigeria doesn’t practice leadership by competence, but by region and religion. It seems to be the turn of the south at the moment. Where from the South? At the moment, there is no consensus among the southerners, but it’s highly probable that the wealthiest candidate is likely to win among the southerners. Whether this healthy politically is another debate on its own. However, left for me, I prefer competence over wealth.

Another factor is the current state of the nation. In 2015, the then APC candidate won, not basically due to his past records —though people made mention of them—but basically due to the fact that people were tired of the killing going on then. Survivability was one of the core factors which influenced the collective choice of 2015 election. People wanted a saviour. Who was responsible for the killing wasn’t a concern as much as who should bring us out of the killing. Portrayed as a saviour —a past general in the army—the then candidate resonated with the human condition need for a saviour. However, even after 8 years, not only has he been unable to restore order, the country has been plunged deeper into disorder. People still long for a saviour at the moment—that’s a biopsychological fact. Therefore, I believe 2023 election will be influenced by the need for survivability.

Another factor is the Endsars protest which shook the nation in 2020. The Endsars wasn’t basically to end police brutality. It was a mistake made by the government officials that people wanted to end police brutality. Basically, Endsars protest was a psycho-physical struggle of the heart longing for a socio-political environment which was suitable for human flourishing. People didn’t just want police brutality to end; they basically wanted leaders who would acknowledge their humanity. Endsars protest was an israel-in-Egypt response, longing for liberation from dehumanisation.

However, like all Pharaohs in history benefitting from a structural system would have done, the protestors were opened fired on. Though the government denied it, many got injured, and tens of people lost their lives. Many still believe today that the present administration was responsible for the butchering of innocent lives. In such a state of mind, anyone linked to the incidence is unlikely to succeed in the general election, particularly, among the Southerners who are well enlightened, except this candidate will be able to erase such a tormenting memory or people choose stomachs over conscience.

The above three factors aren’t absolute. In fact, there are different other factors. And we could still have these factors, yet people collectively choose without minding them. Like I said earlier, things are absolutely complex when it comes to humans. What we can do is see probabilistically rather than certainly.

Franklin Daniel can be reached via

danielsunday35@gmail.com