We have lost the South for a generation.
-Lyndon B. Johnson, as he signed the Civil Rights Act, in 1964.
Some years before the Americans drove the Brits out and gained their independence, there was a boundary dispute between the British colonies (later to become American states), of Maryland, Pennsylvania and Delaware. The border dispute encompassed issues such as who owned the city of Philadelphia, which both Maryland and Pennsylvania claimed. After some years of wrangling, the dispute was resolved, and a line drawn 15 miles south of Philadelphia, putting that city in Pennsylvania.
This boundary was to become important a few years later as Pennsylvania abolished slavery in 1780. Maryland did not abolish slavery until 1864, the height of the American Civil War. Effectively, the Mason-Dixon line had become the boundary between the North, and Dixie (as the South was known). This attitude has extended to this day, as it is believed that as a black person you are likely to have a better time of it north of Mason-Dixon, than south of the line.
Prior to 1968, the Democratic party was almost always guaranteed a victory in elections south of Mason-Dixon, and the Republican’s base was north of the line. Following the passage of the American Civil Rights Act of 1964, and then the Voting Rights Act of 1965, all the racists switched allegiance, and effectively took over the Republican party, as punishment for Lyndon Johnson, a democrat, signing those two laws. Mason-Dixon held.
This shows up until this day in American elections. There are some states that even before the elections, are already known to be “Red” states. Most of these are south of Mason-Dixon. The states which are assumed to be “Blue” states, are mostly north of Mason-Dixon. Also note that all of this holds true for states that were already a part of the United States prior to Manifest Destiny and the Westward Expansion, topics which we may talk about some other day.
What we are talking about today, are the “Battleground states”.
Prior to any American General Election, some states are already thought of as Swing States, states where no single party has a clear lead, and it is in those states that the candidates tend to spend most of their time campaigning. The UK has similar tendencies, where London and the South East have regularly tended to vote Conservative, Scotland and the Midlands have tended to vote Labour. Recently though, Scotland has moved over to the Scottish National Party (again, a talk for another day). Point is, the UK has its own “Swing areas”, such as Wales and South West England.
Having areas that are solidly behind a candidate, regardless of who he is, or what he does, is not wrong in democratic culture.
That, is the memo that Nigerians have failed to get.
In 1999, we had a situation where the elections were between Olu Obasanjo, and Olu Falae, two ethnic Yoruba men. Obasanjo was however perceived by the rest of the country, as the “non-Yoruba” candidate, and he won the vote in every state outside of South-West Nigeria bar Sokoto, Yobe and Zamfara, and lost in every Yoruba state. For the sake of this argument, we won’t look at either the 2003 or 2007 elections at the federal level, because both elections were heavily rigged. However, looking at both elections at state level, a pattern was beginning to emerge, which showed in the 2011 presidential election. In 2011, The North-West and North-East voted for Buhari, while the Middle Belt, South-East, South-South and South-West (except Osun) voted for GEJ. Buhari’s victories in the North-East and North-West were overwhelming. GEJ’s victories in the South-East and South-South were overwhelming as well. However, the votes in the South-West and Middle-Belt were close. By 2015, this equation changed. Buhari won overwhelmingly in his strongholds, GEJ won overwhelmingly in his strongholds. However, in the places where the results had been tight in 2011, the Middle Belt and the South-West, the situation had changed. Buhari won in both regions bar Ekiti, Taraba, Plateau and Nasarawa. The margins were thin.
I believe that the South-West and the Middle Belt have established themselves as the swing regions of Nigerian politics. To all intents and purposes, it is quite clear to me that the North-East, and the North-West, will for the foreseeable future, always align behind the Northern-Muslim candidate. It’s also clear that the South-South, and South-East, will form a voting bloc, for a long while to come. Both sets of regions have one thing in common with the American Mason-Dixon. Both NW/NE and SE/SS in Nigeria, are geographically contiguous regions, so their alliance is more or less natural. Is this a bad thing? I don’t think so.
What will make it “bad” is how it is managed, and this is where the winners of the 2015 General Elections failed. The fallout of that, particularly divisive elections were very poorly handled. The triumphalism, in an election where the winner won by less than 3 million votes with a 44% turnout, was poorly thought through. How to go about recalibrating the minds of Nigerians, so we will understand that we can indeed have different stands, without being so disagreeable, is a job that needs a lot more wisdom than the APC showed post-2015.