Buhari faces risk as support wanes in north

Bloomberg

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari’s re-election bid is facing a growing challenge as members of his party defect to the opposition and support diminishes in a key region that’s stood by him politically for 15 years: the north.
Home to about 40 percent of the West African nation’s voters, Nigeria’s North East and North West regions have long been Buhari’s bedrock—he carried them in three failed bids for the presidency, before gaining enough supporters elsewhere in 2015 to win. Now, defections from the ruling All Progressives Congress have spread to prominent northerners, casting doubt on whether he can secure the 13 states’ backing in February’s ballot.
“The perception is that he has more ‘automatic votes’ than anybody in the vote-rich north,” said Amaka Anku, head of Eurasia Group’s Africa practice. The defection of a key governor last week shows “it may be possible to overcome that edge after all.”
Buhari, 75, was the first opposition candidate in Nigeria’s history to win power at the ballot box. Elected on a pledge to fix a declining economy, fight corruption and improve security at a time when extremist group Boko Haram had killed thousands of people, he’s facing trouble as the ruling party’s bitter internal rivalries take a toll.
Important Allies
The top official of Sokoto state became the first governor from the 13 key territories to defect, joining others from Benue and Kwara in the separate North Central region.
Governors are important allies for a Nigerian presidential candidate due to “their ability to deploy all the resources to win votes,” according to Habu Mohammed, head of the political science department at Bayero University in the northern city of Kano.
The loss of such backing may not be the only problem for Buhari, whose record for the past three years is disputed. Critics say his war on graft has been selective and lost credibility—Nigeria dropped 12 places on Transparency International’s corruption-perceptions index this year—while recovery from 2016’s economic contraction has been sluggish, with inflation still over 11 percent.
Although Boko Haram’s reach in the northeast has reduced under Buhari, attacks continue and the humanitarian situation remains dire, with millions needing food aid and many schools closed.
Bandits in the north’s Zamfara state have also killed more than 300 people this year, and a conflict between crop farmers and herdsmen in North Central is now proving deadlier than the battle against the extremists.