As this year’s presidential election has clearly shown, victory is only achievable through a strategic Process

As this year’s presidential election has clearly shown, victory is only achievable through a strategic, broad based cross-regional support for any candidate running on a truly national party, Deputy Editor EMMANUEL OLADESU reports

The lessons of the February 25 presidential elections are very instructive. No discerning politician or political party can ignore them without severe consequences on poll day.

In Nigeria, a heterogenous country divided into five diverse, unequal but politically potent geo-political zones, no presidential candidate can triumph during elections without the collaboration of, at least, three zones.

In the Second Republic, the aborted Third Republic and the current Fourth Republic, presidential victory has often reflected national diversity and spread. While the factors of ethnicity and religion cannot be discarded, no candidate can hope to win by solely and exclusively leaning on the numerical strength of a single ethnic group, no matter how cohesive the tribe appears to be, or on a lone religious pillar.

Three of the four presidential candidates-Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP)-tried to meet the criterion of spread in varying degrees.