As good as pre-election polls are, 87,209,007 Nigerians with Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) representing 93.3% of the 93,469,008 total registered voters will on February 25 choose the successor of President Muhammadu Buhari whose two-term tenure of eight years ends on May 29, 2023.
A number of local and international research organisations and pollsters conducted pre-election surveys where respondents disclose their preferred presidential candidate.
Significantly, six of the polls tipped the flag bearer of the Labour Party, Peter Obi towards victory while two others predicted success for Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Anap Polls
For instance, three polls by ANAP Foundation and NOI Polls Limited – in September and December 2022 as well as February 2023 all maintained that Obi leads the other 17 candidates.
Anap poll first said the former Anambra State governor leads the other contestants by 21 per cent. Atiku and Tinubu polled 13 per cent each while Kwankwaso scored three per cent.
In the second poll, Anap Foundation President, Atedo Peterside said Obi scored 23 per cent, Tinubu got 13, Atiku got 10 while Kwankwaso polled 2 per cent.
“The high percentage of voters (38%) who refused to disclose their preferred candidate in the South West Zone is worrisome. For other zones, those who refused to disclose their preferred candidate ranged from 14-23%. At 38%, the South West figure is an outlier. Historically, an exceedingly high percentage of voters refusing to disclose their preferred candidate is usually associated with perceptions/fears (real or imagined) of possible voter intimidation within a geographical area,” Peterside stated.
For the third poll, Peterside said, “Obi leads with 21% of registered voters proposing to vote for him if the presidential election were to be conducted today; and 13% proposing to vote for Tinubu who fell in second place. Atiku was third with 10% and Kwankwaso was a distant fourth with 3% of voters proposing to vote for him.
“Given the large pool of undecided voters and/or those who refused to disclose their preferred choice, Mr. Peter Obi’s 8%-point lead at this stage is significant, but not sufficient to separate him from a leading pack of candidates scoring 13%, 10% and 3%.
“Undecided voters and those who prefer not to reveal their preferred candidate add up to a whopping 23% and 30% respectively. The gender split of undecided voters shows that 27% of women are undecided versus 18% of male registered voters.”
Bloomberg Polls
Two pre-election polls commissioned by international news platform, Bloomberg in September 2022 and February 2023 also placed Obi as the leading candidate in the race to become Nigeria’s next President. Similarly, a poll by a public advocacy group We2Geda Foundation in September 2022 said the presidential candidate of the Labour Party is ahead of other candidates.
“Of the 92% of participants who said they’ve decided how to vote, 72% named Obi as their first choice,” Bloomberg reported in its first poll.
For the second poll, Bloomberg said, “Of the 93% of participants who said they’ve decided how to vote, 66% named Obi as their preferred choice. Obi scored a slightly higher 72% among decided respondents in an earlier Premise poll that was released by Bloomberg in September as the official election campaign kicked off.”
We2Geda Poll
For We2Geda, 51 per cent of respondents suggested voting for Obi as their preferred candidate, 25 per cent suggested voting for Atiku while Tinubu ranked third in the voter preference poll with 19 per cent.
However, a poll conducted by the Nigerian Human Rights Community (NHRC) in February 2023 tipped Tinubu as the winner of the presidential election.
“Out of the 19365 respondents interviewed, 7940 (41%) are voting for the candidate of the APC while 5035 (26%), 4067 (21%), and 1743 (9%) are voting for the candidates of PDP, LP, and NNPP respectively,” the report read. “1162 (6%) of the respondents are rooting for the other candidates,” the NHRC stated.
POLAF Poll
A survey by a not-for-profit firm, Political Africa Initiative (POLAF); and a newspaper organisation, BusinessDay projected Atiku as the winner of the presidential poll.
In the poll, Atiku scored 38 per cent, Tinubu got 29 per cent, Obi secured 27 per cent while Kwakwanso got 5 per cent.
Though pre-election polls may prove right or wrong and they are not ultimate deciders of the eventual winner of an election, they are sometimes thermometer to gauge political temperature and impulse of voters before election day.
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