What Google says about the Gubernatorial Elections in Lagos, Oyo and Rivers

On the 7th of April, I asked if maybe such forecasts using big data were the way to go generally, seeing as they were bang on the money with regards to the presidential elections. Today, we have even more Google trend data to put to the test against the forthcoming gubernatorial elections.

The first, and most obvious conclusion we can draw even before sharing the new data is that Nigerians generally aren’t as interested in the governance of their respective states as they are with who the president is, an anomaly of sorts considering that governance at the state level is more likely to directly affect your day-to-day life than the president is. It might also be a pointer to the fact that everyone realises that the Nigerian system is built around the centre and as a result, pays all the attention there.

In any case, it’s looking like the turnout for the gubernatorial elections won’t be anywhere near the turnout we witnessed for the presidential elections. There was only enough search volume to get details for three states: Lagos, Oyo and Rivers.

Lagos:

From the above, Google Trends shows the amount of search traffic on the 2 main candidates in Lagos; Jimi Agbaje and Akinwunmi Ambode, using the two most popular keywords for each candidate. Although Ambode is slightly ahead in terms of search traffic, the interest for both parties is growing steadily pointing towards a tight race.

Oyo:

The Oyo state chart compares 3 candidates; Alao-Akala, Abiola Ajimobi (current governor) and Teslim Folarin.

The chart shows more people are interested in Ajimobi at the moment. Although searches for Folarin peaked in March, it has since dropped. Searches for Alao-Akala peaked in December 2014. Probably because that was when he was announced as the governorship flag-bearer of the Labour Party.

Rivers:

The chart above compares 3 governorship candidates of Rivers state; Tonye Princewill, Dakuku Peterside and Wike Nyesom. Interests for Wike seem to the highest at the moment. Dakuku Peterside is also generating some search interests. Princewill, the last candidate in this analysis isn’t generating enough search volume to show up on the charts.

I definitely will be keeping an eye on the results from those states to see if Google data calls them right.

Source: TechSuplex

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I Told Jonathan He Would Lose – T.B Joshua

President Goodluck Jonathan that he would lose last week’s presidential election.

Mr. Joshua said he sent his message to the President several weeks before the election.

“I want to use this moment to congratulate Nigerians in our midst here,” Mr. Joshua began in a message to his multi-national congregation, televised live via his Christian network Emmanuel TV.

Alluding to his prediction a week to the election that the dark cloud he saw covering Nigeria was lifting, he said that a bloody ‘war’ would have ensued if not for the prompt concession of power by President Jonathan.

“Look, Nigeria wanted change – everyone was yearning for change. An attempt to stop change leads to war, to a bloodbath… If Nigeria knows what we have overcome, we would dance,”​Mr. Joshua said.​

Mr. Joshua praised Mr. Jonathan’s tenure insisting that he had served his nation well despite the immense security challenges.

“I really want to salute President Jonathan. The President has served; he has done his best. It was just the season of crisis – and unfortunately he found himself at the lead in the season of crisis,”​he said.​

The cleric said ‘God’ spoke to him with a message for Mr. Jonathan several weeks before the general elections.

He said God told him -“This message should be delivered to your president, that whatever the outcome of this election, his regime has come to an end. He should accept to save the lives of millions,” he told the congregation.

Mr. Joshua claimed he called Mr. Jonathan by phone, adding that he had previously shared with him many revelations about Nigeria which eventually came to pass.

Insisting the seriousness of the revelation was such that it had to be relayed personally so as not affect votes; Mr. Joshua said Mr. Jonathan promptly sent a close aide to meet the cleric.

After the presidential aide had worshipped at his church during a Sunday service, Mr. Joshua said he met him and relayed the revelation that Mr. Jonathan’s regime had come to an end. “Soft landing – that is the language I sent to the president,” he told attendees.

Mr. Joshua described President Jonathan as a man who ‘has a heart for God’, revealing that he even spoke with the Nigerian president shortly before his historic concession call to President-elect Mr. Buhari.

“I said to him, ‘Your Excellency – all you need to say is thank You, Jesus, even when it seems there is nothing to be thankful for. He said, ‘Thank you, man of God’. Before I knew it, I saw the news on CNN that he had congratulated his opponent,”​Mr. Joshua said.​

He prayed that people from the ‘South-South’ region in Nigeria where President Jonathan hails from would understand that ‘their son has become a hero’, adding that his actions prove the region is after a united Nigeria.

Mr. Joshua reminded his congregants that he had given a similar message in 2010 to Laurent Gbagbo, the former President of Ivory Coast.

“In a vision, I saw crisis – thousands of people being killed in Ivory Coast – just because of the outcome of the election,” he said to congregants.

After sending the message across to the then Ivorian leader, a delegation of government figures and presidential aides was dispatched to Nigeria.

“I told them that whatever the outcome of the election – whether the popular or unpopular voice of people – our President should concede. His regime has come to an end,” Joshua reminisced.

According to the cleric, Mr. Gbagbo had personally called him regarding the prediction, looking for an avenue to avert it and inviting him to Ivory Coast. Joshua insisted that nothing more could be done.

When Mr. Gbagbo refused to concede power to Alassane Ouattara in the controversial 2010 elections, a bloody onslaught ensued leading to the deaths of thousands and his eventual incarceration and public disgrace.

Mr. Joshua also told his faithful how he had personally warned MKO Abiola that God was not backing his presidency in the ill-fated Nigerian elections of 1993 despite overwhelming public support in his favour.

He further recalled how, as a young man, he met the former Governor of Lagos State, Lateef Jakande, and told him that his beloved daughter was close to the grave. Both revelations came to pass, he said.

The cleric added that his prophetic ministry is the reason he does not take sides in politics. “That is why I don’t belong to any party. All the parties are my own. I love everyone. If I belong to this party and the message of God is now against that party, how will I present it – when no one knows the mind of God? It is better I am free to deliver God’s message.”

He said that material gain was not his mission and that no exchange of money can be involved when it comes to spiritual matters such as prophecy.

“I am a material to be used that will not cost you any money. I am afraid to collect money from you because if I collect it, it will affect the gift and grace of God in my life.”

Mr. Joshua prayed for the new government to be led by the All Progressives Congress. “Join me to pray for the new government, headed by President-Elect Buhari. Ask God to give our President a hearing heart – a heart that will listen to what the public is saying and want to know God’s opinion,” he said.

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We Feared Jonathan will Not Accept Defeat – Buhari

Up to the time Professor Attahiru Jega, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, was announcing the results of the March 28 presidential election on Wednesday, fear of uncertainty engulfed the All Progressives Congress, APC, and its presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari.

However, it was not a fear occasioned by any conceivable loss of the election because with the result already trickling in the previous day, the camp knew the APC was coasting home to victory. But it was the uncertainty that President Goodluck Jonathan, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the election, would reject the results and invoke a military intervention to stop Buhari from ascending to the presidency.

The otherwise, after all, smacked a big surprise to APC, Buhari and his campaign organization.

And for conceding defeat and subsequently calling to congratulate the president-elect even before the last result was officially announced, Jonathan did not only carve a niche for himself but also launched into the community of patriots and statesmen.

These were thoughts expressed by the Director, Media and Publicity Directorate of the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Organization, APCPCO, Mallam Garba Shehu, in Abuja.

Speaking with Sunday Vanguard, Shehu, who was central to the election of Buhari by way of information dissemination and management, said that the campaign was the fiercest he had ever witnessed since he debuted into partisan politics.

He said: “I can say that the President acted with grace. He surprised us because we never expected that they would accept defeat. In fact, the sense everyone had was that they probably had plan A, B, C or D. And in any case, with the kind of thing that Mr. Orubebe did at the collation center, you knew that even when the President had grace, given the chance with the community of people around him, they could have threatened this democracy.

“Look, I have been involved in presidential campaigns about three or four times in the past, the difference is that this is the most fearful campaign that I have ever experienced. This is the most life threatening campaign because we were dealing with opponents we thought would stop at nothing because they were throwing everything into it.

“So, we were not taking anything for granted. It affected our lives. Would you see me in a night club? You couldn’t risk it because you didn’t even know who was trailing you. And it came as a huge relief.

“Again, we were getting security reports from our own sources. Until the President said ‘I concede’ and congratulated Buhari, we felt every minute that something wrong would happen. There was a clear and discernible threat to democracy as a system of government.

“Look, everyone felt concerned because, what if, God forbid, he declared a coup? These scenarios had been laid before Nigerians. Mr. Okupe, the Special Adviser to the President, was he not on YouTube, recorded on video, saying that Buhari will never become President? What do you take that for? It means that Buhari would win and they will take it away from him.

“This careless talk, arrogant display of power, it had come from the Villa. Many sources with linkages to power: Asari-Dokubo, Chief E.K. Clark and all of them, were they not sounding words to the President? They had said it that they would take away their part of the country from Nigeria if Buhari won.

“But for the President to have come and say ‘I accept defeat as the leader of the country’; that had an effect of really calming things down. And that’s why, whether they like it or not, President Jonathan has written his name in gold in so far as this is concerned.”

Shehu assured that the president-elect would not avenge the attacks on his person by the allies of Jonathan, saying there was enough work to do to meet the aspirations of Nigerians than pursuing mundane things.

Source: Vanguard

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PHOTOS: Thousands Tear PDP Membership Cards As Benue APC Receive Decampees

As brief as the occasion was three PDP stalwarts led hundreds to defect into the APC. His in-laws decorated him and his wife in TIV traditional attire and also pledged their support towards the realization of his aspiration.

In Naka, headquarters of Gwer-West PDP chieftains including several former council chairmen and aides to Governor Gabriel Suswam dumped their former party for the APC.

The former chairmen were Abaji, Godfrey Ichoghol, and Andrew Ayande while the aides were Francis Nyibiam, a former Adviser to Governor Moses Adasu now current Senior Special Assistant to Governor Gabriel Suswam and his colleague, Anta Igbaato, alias Galadima.

The victory of the All Progressives Congress, APC, at the Presidential and National Assembly Elections has sparked a new wave of cross carpeting from the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, into the majority party in Benue State beginning with thousands in Aondona and Naka towns in Gwer West local government area.

It all started when the governorship candidate of the party, Chief Dr Samuel Ortom, and his entourage which included his campaign Director General, Professor Steve Ugbah, had a stopover in Aondona, where his wife, Chief Mrs. Eunice Erdoo Ortom hails from.

Speaking at the two places Chief Dr Ortom expressed happiness that the chieftains had responded to the spirit of change sweeping across the country by jumping into the train as it made its last phase of the journey and enjoined those still outside to also move in.

He pledged those that his if voted into office, his administration would provide critical infrastructure including good roads, portable water, electricity, and health care even as he would implement the free and compulsory primary and secondary education enshrined in the APC manifesto.

Chief Dr Ortom also pledged to pay arrears of salaries and pensions and also tackle unemployment.

He maintained that he considered Gwer-West as his home since his wife hailed from the area and was counting on the support of the people of the place to make it to Makurdi Government House.

Leaders of the defectors who spoke said the PDP had outlived its usefulness hence the need for an alternative platform to address the yearnings and aspirations of the people.

Photo Credits: Naijaloaded

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