On Wednesday, March 1, 2023, a media outlet named Pulse Nigeria 247 shared a picture on its Instagram page, stating that ‘Since 1999, any candidate who won Kwara State won the presidential election.’
In the graphic shared was the name of past presidents, the year, and total number of votes they got from Kwara State.
The post had generated 246 comments and liked by 6655 users by March 2, 2023
In 1999 and 2003 Olusegun Obasanjo has 470, 510, and 390,800 respectively. Goodluck Jonathan had 268, 243. In 2015 and 2019 President Muhammadu Buhari had 302, 146, and 308, 984 respectively. The new President-Elect, Bola Tinubu had 263, 572 in the just concluded general election.
POTENTIAL IMPACT OF THE CLAIM
If this claim is true, it would suggest that Kwara State is a key indicator of the outcome of the presidential election in Nigeria.
It could shape the strategies of political parties and candidates in future elections. For example, if a candidate believes that winning Kwara State is crucial to winning the presidential election, they may focus more resources and attention on campaigning in that state.
CLAIM
N-VA extracted the claim; “Since 1999, ANY CANDIDATE who won Kwara State won the presidential election” The researcher went on to fact-check and verify the authenticity of these claims.
VERIFICATION
According to data retrieved from Electoral Geography, a constituent component of political geography, a science which studies development of all political processes inside geographical space.
In 1999 and 2003 the former president of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo won the two elections by having 470, 510 (71.3%) and 390, 800 (68.0%) votes in Kwara State respectively in those years.
In 2011, Goodluck Jonathan won Buhari with 64.68% votes in Kwara State.
In 2015 and 2019 the incumbent president of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari won both elections after having 302146 (68.66%) and 308,984 votes in Kwara State respectively.
Also, the recent president-elect in just concluded the 2023 presidential election, Bola Tinubu emerge as the winner after securing 263,572 votes in Kwara State.
However, according to a report published by The Cable with the title “INCREDIBLE: INEC does NOT have full official results of 2007 presidential election” The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) does not have the full results of the highly controversial 2007 presidential election.
The presidential election held on April 21, 2007, is the first and only in Nigeria’s history in which there is no state-by-state breakdown of the candidates’ scores.
Maurice Iwu, a professor and INEC chairman at the time, declared Umaru Musa Yar’Adau of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with a figure of 24,638,063 votes without giving the details.
Hence, it could not be determined if ex-president Umaru Musa Yar’adua won Kwara State for that election year. Also, Pulse NG did not make reference to the 2007 election in the Instagram post
VERDICT
The claim that since 1999, any candidate who won Kwara State won the presidential election is MOSTLY TRUE
