kopite:
Hard reality is that Ikwerre has the upper hand when it comes to votes and population. there are some ethnic groups that naturally follow ikwerre votes and that is etche and orashi region (ogba,egbema,ndoni,ekpeye). The ogonis have long in the days of obi wali and saro wiwa formed and unwritten alliance that is longstanding. Amaechi killed APC in 2015 by fielding Dakuku from Opobo (a core minority riverine) and his deputy from Abua (another minority)
Tonye Cole will struggle to garner vote in kalabari region, reasons......Buguma-Abonnema battle for supremacy. long standing political tussle of relevance (go and check). they never vote for each other. They never support each other. In APC, party chairman from kalabari, governorship aspirant from kalabari. wrong political calculation. Amaechi keeps projecting wrongly. He solely believes in federal might of police, SARS and military. But on that day,all states have election. The plan of APC writing election and calling results is already known by wike and co.

The best bet still would have been magnus Abe. Lots of Ikwerre people believe that Ogoni should be the next governor after them.

this is my simple analysis.

I totally agree with yoi but the truth is that the much acclaimed voting strength of ikwerre is false.majority of the voters in ikwerre are non indigenes including me.while majority of the voters in the riverine areas are indigenes.voters turnout in ph and obioakpor lgas is usually very low but pdp usually inflates the figures and gets 200k votes each from those two lgas.the strict use of card readers has curtailled it.in a free and fair poll wike will only win obalga,phalga,onelga,andoni,ahoada west,okrika,ogu bolo.apc will win the rest.
Wike main power is with the militants,thugs and cultists who are mostly from the riverine area so amechi must counter him by bringing arsenal from there while the security agents will back them up.
Anyway,the guber tussle is secondary.the primary thing is for buhari to divide rivers and he has done that.