Edo APC’s 2.5 Million-Vote Target: The Question Of Believability, by Isaac Asabor

Politics is often a game of numbers, but numbers can also expose the difference between political ambition and electoral reality.

Against this backdrop, the reported ambition of the All-Progressives Congress (APC) in Edo State to pursue a “2.5 million-vote target for President Bola Tinubu in the 2027 presidential election” deserves more than political applause. It deserves a sober interrogation: How feasible is the target?

The question becomes even more compelling following the conclusion of the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise in the state. According to figures released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), 131,165 new voters registered in Edo between August 2025 and July 2026. In addition, 52,907 voters transferred their voting locations, while 19,565 requests were submitted for corrections to voters’ details. These figures, published by The Punch online edition on August 1, 2026, in a report titled “131,165 New Voters Registered in Edo,” are significant and inevitably raise questions about the feasibility of the Edo APC’s 2.5 million-vote target for the 2027 presidential election.

On the surface, the new registration figures provide fresh electoral ammunition for every political party. But when placed against the scale of the APC’s reported target, they also raise some uncomfortable questions.

For instance, INEC had previously put Edo’s voter register at 2,629,02, following the earlier registration exercise. That represented an increase from the 2,501,081 registered voters recorded for the 2023 general election.

If the APC is indeed looking towards 2.5 million presidential votes from Edo in 2027, the first question should therefore be: “Where will those votes come from?”

Without a doubt, the mathematics is brutal. This is as a target of 2.5 million votes would amount to almost the entire current registered voter population of the state. Even without considering invalid ballots, voter apathy, illness, travelling, logistical problems, insecurity or

people who simply choose not to vote, the target would require an extraordinary level of voter mobilization.

It is one thing to have more than two million names on the voters’ register. It is another to get those people to the polling units. And it is an entirely different proposition to persuade virtually all of them to vote for the same presidential candidate.

Given the foregoing view, the experience of the 2023 presidential election should serve as a reality check. In that election, Edo had 2,501,081 registered voters, but only 603,894 were accredited. The total votes cast stood at 600,395, while valid votes were 581,266. Peter Obi of the Labour Party won the state with 331,163 votes, while Tinubu polled 144,471. Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party scored 89,585. That means Tinubu’s 2023 Edo tally was less than 150,000 votes.

Therefore, moving from 144,471 votes in 2023 to a target of 2.5 million votes in 2027 would require an increase of roughly 17 times. That is not ordinary electoral growth. It would be an electoral revolution.

Of course, political circumstances have changed since 2023. The APC now controls the Edo State Government House following Governor Monday Okpebholo’s victory in the 2024 governorship election. Okpebholo secured 291,667 votes against Asue Ighodalo’s 247,274, winning 11 of the state’s 18 local government areas.

The APC can therefore legitimately argue that it is in a stronger position than it was during the 2023 presidential election. But even that victory offers a lesson in the limits of political mobilization.

The APC’s governorship candidate won the state with fewer than 300,000 votes in an election where more than two million voters were registered. If the party could mobilize 291,667 votes to win the governorship, what political transformation would be required to mobilize 2.5 million presidential votes? That is the elephant in the room.

Perhaps the most important point is that presidential elections and governorship elections are not necessarily driven by identical voting patterns. Candidates, alliances, personalities, local interests and national issues can dramatically alter voter behaviour.

The APC may also benefit from incumbency at both the federal and state levels. It can point to infrastructure projects, social programmes, economic reforms and other achievements as reasons voters should support the President. But that is precisely where the 2.5 million target should become less of a slogan and more of a strategic challenge.

At this juncture, it is germane to ask, “What is the party’s value proposition to the Edo voter?” “What will a trader in Oba Market, a civil servant in Benin City, a farmer or businessman in Igbanke, a student in Ekpoma, a young entrepreneur in Auchi or a resident of Ovia North-East see as a compelling reason to vote for Tinubu?” The answer cannot simply be that APC controls the state government.

Edo voters have demonstrated repeatedly that they are capable of separating personalities and offices on the ballot. The 2023 presidential result and the 2024 governorship election are themselves evidence that electoral behaviour can shift considerably between elections.

The latest CVR figures may, however, give the APC something to work with. The registration of 131,165 new voters means there is a substantial pool of new and potentially younger voters entering the electoral conversation. Ovia North-East recorded 11,613 new registrations, while Oredo recorded 9,544. Owan West, at 3,393, recorded the lowest figure among the state’s local government areas, according to the INEC report cited in the news story. But these voters are not automatically APC voters. That distinction is crucial.

A voter registered through an APC-led government does not become an APC voter by registration. A young Nigerian who collects a Permanent Voter’s Card is not necessarily a supporter of the ruling party. Indeed, the 2023 election demonstrated that young and newly mobilized voters could gravitate towards a candidate outside the two major political parties.

The APC must therefore confront the harder part of electoral mobilization: “conversion”. How many of those new voters can it persuade? How many existing voters can it retain? How many 2023 supporters can it recover? How many voters who backed opposition candidates can it persuade to cross over? And perhaps most importantly, how does it intend to turn electoral sympathy into actual votes on election day?

There is also the question of voter turnout. A political party can set a target of 2.5 million votes, but it cannot manufacture voters who do not show up. The 2023 figures demonstrate just how wide the gap can be between registered voters and actual participation. Out of more than 2.5 million registered voters, only about 600,000 votes were cast in the presidential election.

Consequently, the APC’s first challenge may not even be winning 2.5 million votes. It may be getting anything close to 2.5 million Edo voters to participate in the election. This is where political organization becomes more important than political rhetoric.

If the target is serious, the APC would need an unprecedented grassroots operation stretching across all 18 local government areas, 192 wards and thousands of polling units. It would need to identify voters, understand their concerns, build trust, combat apathy and ensure that supporters who intend to vote actually reach their polling units.

But even then, the party cannot ignore the larger question of public sentiment. Electoral victory is not secured by arithmetic alone. Voters ultimately make choices based on their perception of leadership, economic conditions, personal welfare, security, jobs, infrastructure and the credibility of the candidates seeking their mandate.

The 2027 presidential election will therefore be a referendum not merely on political structures but also, to some extent, on the lived experiences of Nigerians.

For the APC, Edo’s 2.5 million-vote ambition could consequently become either an impressive demonstration of political organization or an example of how political targets can outrun electoral realities.

There is nothing wrong with setting an audacious target. In fact, political parties need ambitious goals. But ambition must be accompanied by arithmetic.

The difference between a political aspiration and a credible electoral target is a clear roadmap showing where the votes will come from.

The APC may ultimately surprise its critics. Politics is unpredictable, and elections are capable of producing results that appear impossible months earlier. But if the party wants Nigerians to take the 2.5 million-vote target seriously, it must answer one deceptively simple question: “How does a party that secured 291,667 votes in the 2024 governorship election and whose presidential candidate received 144,471 votes in 2023 intend to mobilize 2.5 million votes in 2027?” Until the foregoing question is convincingly answered, the 2.5 million figure may remain more of a political declaration than an electoral forecast. And in politics, as in mathematics, “the numbers must eventually add up.”