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NIGERIA DECIDES: An Analysis of the Just Concluded 2015 General Elections held on the March 28, 2015


A post about election on an infectious disease blog weird right, but hey I love maps and infectious disease data is no different from an election result data. While the result of the just concluded Nigerian election have been mapped, I haven’t come across cartogram visualization. So here we go………..

The Nigeria presidential election held on the 28th of March was a closely fought match between incumbent president, Goodluck Jonathan, who is seeking a second four-year term under the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and former military ruler Gen. Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressive Congress (APC).

Article 134(2) of the Nigerian constitution stipulates that a presidential candidate will be duly elected after attaining both the highest number of votes cast, and having received at least a quarter of the votes at each of at least two-thirds of the thirty-six (36) states including the Federal Capital territory (FCT). If no candidate satisfies the requirement, a second election will be held between the two leading candidates within seven (7) days from the pronouncement of the result.


Figure 1: Cartogram of Nigerian map showing percentage of votes for both APC and PDP

The Nigeria map above is a cartogram of the 36 states of Nigeria including the Federal Capital Territory Abuja, resized according to the total number of votes cast during the presidential election. A total of 28585045 votes were cast with 15424921 (53.96%) of the votes going to the APC presidential candidate while the incumbent president of the PDP got 12853162 (44.96%) of the votes cast. The APC presidential candidate secured more than 50% of the votes cast in twenty-one (21) states and more than 25% in five (5) states including the FCT, Abuja resulting in his emergency as the President-elect of Federal Republic of Nigeria.

The two maps below gives a much better representation of the outcome of the election as it highlights states where both parties gained enough votes. 


Figure 2: Cartogram of Nigerian map showing percentage of votes for each party, APC and PDP

The map on the right shows the APC presidential candidate securing more than 50% of votes cast in North-Eastern, North-Western and South-Western states and more than 25% of votes cast in Edo, Ekiti, Nasarawa, Plateau, Taraba states and the FCT, Abuja. He secured less than 25% of the votes cast in South-South (apart from Edo state) and South-Eastern states.

The PDP presidential candidate on the other hand secured more than 50% of the votes cast in South-South and South-Eastern states including the FCT, Abuja and more than 25% of the votes cast in the South-Western and some of the North-Central states. He failed to secure more than 25% of the votes in North-Western and North-Eastern states.

The opposition party gained enough votes in states small in land area but larger in population dimension. For example Lagos and Kano states.

With 15424921 out of 28585045 people voting APC (and with 780926 votes rejected as invalid), the gap between APC and PDP was 2571759 meaning that in some states like the North-Central and South-Western states, it was a tight race.  Hence the incumbent was in-fact defeated in the North-Western and North-Eastern states as PDP failed to secure the requisite 25% votes.


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