II. ELECTABILITY.

By electability, I mean the popularity or the ability of a candidate to win an election. In otherwords, electability is the probability of a candidate from the opposition of having at least a theoretical chance of defeating babangida or Jonathan or any other PDP candidate in a free and fair election. It makes no sense for the opposition to rally round a worthy but unpopular candidate. Since elections is more about numbers, therefore, the more popular a candidate is, the higher the probability that many voters will vote for him and the higher his chances of winning the election -all things being equal.

TALKING ABOUT ELECTABILITY: WHERE SHOULD THE CANDIDATE OF THE OPPOSITION COME FROM - NORTH OR SOUTH? HEAD YOU WIN, TAIL YOU LOSS.

Do you still consider yourself a good political analyst especially as regards to Nigerian politics? If you think so, then here is another opportunity for you to test your skills. Please answer the following question (write down your answer before reading on/mine. We will compare notes at the end. Given the present political situation in Nigeria and base on the 'What if analyses' about Jonathan-ibb dilemma carried out in the previous part of this series, from which region, North or South, do you think the presidential candidate of the opposition should come from in order to have a god chance of defeating babangida, Jonathan or any other PDP candidate? Give reasons (write down your answer) to support your answer. I want to remind you that the reasons are even more important than the answering North or South.

If you choose South as the region where you think that the opposition should choose their/its candidate (hope you wrote down your reasons as I requested), then I am afraid to say that you are wrong and a bad political analyst - at least as far as Nigeria's politics is concerned. The opposition must choose its/their candidate from the North, and not South, in order to have at least a theoretical chance of winning the 2011 election for the following reasons:

PONYATIE OR INFORMAL AGREEMENT AS THE GUIDING PRINCIPLE IN NIGERIAN POLITICS

The reason to support my answer is well illustrated in a Russian word called 'Ponyatie.' Ponyatie is an abstract noun which has its roots from the verb 'Ponyat' or 'Ponimat' which means to understand. Russian verbs with the same meaning are always in 2 forms; reflecting the time an action was performed - one is like the present tense and the other like the perfect tense in English language.

In Russian language, ponyatie has 2 meanings which are 'an understanding' and 'a concept.' But ponyatie has a third meaning which is widely believed not to be literary Russian language. It's a sort of slang. The third meaning of ponyatie is a sort of unwritten or informal rule by which a certain group of people voluntaryly abide to live strictly. In most cases, nobody could say exactly how and when and by whom the informal rule agreement was first introduced. Ponyatie is very rampant in Russian prisons or among Russian criminal gangs.