By Iniobong Udoh II
One bragging right the Igbos have in Nigerian politics is this: when it comes to voting for president, history does not support the idea that they only vote for their own. People may not like hearing that, but documented election results do not care about anybody’s emotions. And before someone twists my words, I am not saying Igbo people cannot be tribalistic.
Of course they can. There are tribalistic people in every Nigerian tribe. What I am saying is very specific. When it comes to presidential elections in this democratic era, the South-East has repeatedly voted massively for people who are not Igbo, even when Igbo candidates were on the ballot. Let us start from 2003. Ojukwu was running for president.
Not just any Igbo man. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu. One of the biggest symbols of Igbo identity in modern Nigerian history. You would think that if presidential voting in the South-East was simply about “our brother”, Ojukwu would have cleaned out the region. He didn’t. Olusegun Obasanjo, a Yoruba man, defeated Ojukwu in ALL FIVE South-East states.
Even in Anambra, Ojukwu’s own state, Obasanjo got about 54% while Ojukwu got about 32%. Enugu gave Obasanjo almost 80%. Ebonyi gave him over 94%. Imo gave him about 65%. Just think about that. Ojukwu was standing on the ballot, yet millions of Igbo voters looked beyond tribe and chose Obasanjo.
Someone will say, “But 2003 had issues.” Fine. Let us move to 2011. Pat Utomi was also running for president. Igbo man. Professor. Economist. Highly educated. Nationally known. Did the South-East say, “This is our brother, everybody vote for him”? No. They went massively for Goodluck Jonathan, an Ijaw man from Bayelsa.
Jonathan got almost 5 million votes from the South-East. Pat Utomi did not even get 12,000 votes in the entire country. Read that again. An Igbo presidential candidate was on the ballot, yet the region overwhelmingly chose an Ijaw man. Then came 2015. Jonathan was still Ijaw. Buhari was Fulani. Again, the South-East went heavily for Jonathan.
In Anambra alone, Jonathan got 660,762 votes. Buhari got 17,926. Jonathan was not Igbo. Yet the South-East stood strongly behind him. Now come to 2019 because this one is even more interesting. Kingsley Moghalu was running for president. Igbo man. Former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank. Educated. Experienced. Accomplished.
If the South-East simply voted based on tribe, this was another perfect opportunity. But look at what happened. In Anambra, Atiku Abubakar got 524,738 votes. Moghalu got 4,091. In Enugu, Atiku got over 355,000. Moghalu got around 1,300. In Abia, Atiku got almost 220,000. Moghalu got about 720. And Atiku is Fulani from Adamawa.
Yes, Peter Obi was Atiku’s running mate, and that definitely helped. But Atiku was still the man whose name was at the top of that ticket. He was the person the South-East was voting to make President of Nigeria. So when 2023 came and people suddenly started shouting that Igbos are tribalistic because the South-East voted massively for Peter Obi, I found the argument funny.
History did not start in 2023. For the first time in this democratic era, an Igbo presidential candidate was not just on the ballot to make up the numbers. Peter Obi was one of the three leading candidates. He had a real national movement. He had support outside the South-East. He had a realistic chance of winning.
Of course the South-East voted massively for him. Would tribe have influenced some voters? Absolutely. Let us not pretend. But you cannot carry 2023 on your head and use it to erase 2003, 2011, 2015 and 2019. That is not how data works. And even 2023 itself gives us something interesting to think about. Peter Obi defeated Bola Tinubu in Lagos. Tinubu is Yoruba.
He governed Lagos for eight years. Lagos has been the centre of his political power for decades. Yet Obi got 582,454 votes there while Tinubu got 572,606. So I will also give Yoruba voters their flowers for that. Because the truth is that Nigerian politics is more complicated than this lazy idea that everyone simply votes for their tribe.
But if we are going to accuse one group of being uniquely tribalistic in presidential politics, then we should at least open the history books first. Ojukwu was Igbo. The South-East chose Obasanjo. Pat Utomi was Igbo. The South-East chose Jonathan. Jonathan was Ijaw. They backed him massively in two elections. Moghalu was Igbo.
The South-East chose Atiku. Then Peter Obi finally became a major presidential contender in 2023 and suddenly some people behaved as if Igbos had spent the previous twenty years voting only for Igbo candidates. No. The data is sitting there. And perhaps there is a simple explanation.
Since Nigeria returned to democracy in 1999, the South-East has not produced a president. That means Igbo voters have spent this entire democratic era repeatedly choosing between candidates from other parts of Nigeria. Maybe that has forced the region to think more about alliances, candidates and political interests outside itself. We can debate that.
But one thing we should stop doing is rewriting electoral history because it does not fit the tribal argument we want to make. So yes, when it comes to presidential voting, the Igbos have one legitimate bragging right: They have repeatedly shown that they can vote outside their tribe. You don’t have to like that statement. Just bring better data to disprove it.
