How is it, that a relatively unknown candidate with two first names – Felix Nicholas, bested the could-have-been formiddable third force of Nigeria’s presidential candidates, to rack up the third highest votes in the whole of Nigeria?
Through the sacred art of finesse, that’s how.
There is very little actual information about Felix Nicholas on the World Wide Web, beyond his being the unexpected third-place winner of Nigeria’s elections. But we do know at least 3 things for sure.
He is 37 years old and the pastor-founder of the Miracle Center International Inc, New York — a state he resides in, and his preferred hidey-hole while other candidates painted houses and distributed bags of rice, during Nigeria’s campaign season.
He is from Edo State and has carried out at least one notable philanthropic activity there.
Most interestingly, he was formerly the 2019 presidential candidate of the interestingly named All Blended Party (who came 35th in the elections). But something must have happened, or Felix saw the finessing light, because by December 2018, they were fielding another candidate – Moses Shipi, while Nicholas had hopped on to the People’s Coalition Party. Interesting.
And speaking of the PCP, you know how they say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery? Well, they might have taken it a little overboard, going beyond flattery, to an almost crazed fan, with how worrying their similarities to the PDP are.
Foe one thing, they changed their party logo to better reflect a more PDP-aesthetic, see for yourself:
The thing about the PCP is, it is one letter short of the PDP, one of 2 most powerful Nigerian parties. its logo is a simple circle, partitioned into 3 parts, with the letters, P C P, written across them, while again, taking from the PDP, to adopt it’s primary colours of green, white and red.
To make things even more interesting, the PCP stuck with a middle ‘c’, a middle letter that comes before the PDP’s ‘D’, to make sure Nigeria’s unsuspecting, short-sighted and astigmatism affected citizens, looking to cast their ballot for the PDP are sufficiently hoodwinked.
And it worked too. Nicholas Felix only had to sit back, relax and enjoy Manhattan clam chowder while his master plan worked for him.
0n February 23rd, while many scrolled through the ballot paper, looking to find their preferred PDP logo, they happened first on that of the PCP, in all of its likeness with the PDP, robbing Atiku of who knows how many genuine votes. They raked in a total of 110 196 votes.
Not bad for a party with just a little over five-hundred likes on Facebook.
Felix has since thanked the good people of Nigeria for recognising his effectiveness as a leader, (ha!), while in this same America he is apparently loathe to leave. Same with the PCP’s party Chairman, whose identity I was convinced was entirely made up, but no, Don Harmattan is real and must be just as grateful to Nigerians for believing in the party’s vision.
Politics in Nigeria, how can you not love this game?
