By Cross Udo, Abuja
As the Nigerian electorate prepares to cast their votes in the February 25 presidential election, research experts from Nextier SPD have submitted that a recent face-to-face nationwide poll on Nigeria’s 2023 presidential elections shows Labour Party, LP, is leading the voters’ preference at 37 percent of the survey respondents.
The experts also said that the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, secured 27 percent of the survey responses, while the All Progressives Congress, APC, secured 24 percent, with the New Nigeria Peoples Party, NNPP, at six percent.
But the Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has dismissed the Nextier Poll result, saying that the projection of the Labour Party LP presidential candidate as Nigeria’s next president was designed to prepare the stage for a post-election crisis.
Nextier, an Africa-focused consulting firm, said it conducted its second presidential poll on Friday, January 27, 2023, four weeks before the scheduled presidential elections. The team used a sample size of 3,000 respondents and generated a margin of error of two per cent at a 95 per cent confidence interval. The survey sample represented the age and gender demographics in Nigeria’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
It submitted that “Although Labour Party secured the highest voter preference, it is unlikely to secure an outright first-round victory. None of the presidential candidates met both criteria for victory in the first round: a majority of votes cast and 25 percent in two-thirds of the states.”
The survey results from the group said “show that Labour Party can achieve 25 percent of the votes in 23 states. Therefore, the presidential election could head to a runoff between Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar or Bola Tinubu.”
It contended that “Most registered voters (72 per cent) have decided on their preferred party. This result is consistent across rural and urban voters. Similarly, the survey data demonstrates that respondents are certain in their choices.
“Eighty-three per cent of the respondents indicated that nothing would make them change their preferred party before the elections. It is important to note that the survey questionnaire showed the party logos and names instead of the candidates’ names or images.
“Voter turnout in the 2023 presidential election could be significantly higher than in 2019. For instance, 77 percent of respondents indicated that they will vote in this election, while 63 percent stated that they “will vote. This level of commitment was consistent across all age and gender demographics in rural and urban communities.”
Nextier Founding Partner, Patrick O. Okigbo, in the report stated that the presidential election is shaping to be one of the most keenly contested races in recent decades.
He said, “It is exciting to see Nigerians take their civic responsibilities seriously.”
He confirmed that, in addition to the two national polls, Nextier would continue to provide data analysis and insights on Nigeria’s elections and other development issues.
*Result putting Obi ahead of Tinubu meant to cause post-election crisis, says APC PCC
Reacting to the result of Nextier’s research, the Director, Media, and Publicity at the APC Presidential Campaign Council, Bayo Onanuga, in a statement said, “We suspect that their first and second fallacious poll results are a pretext to cause political crisis and riots in Nigeria after the February 25. They may be preparing the ground for violent protest by Obi supporters who will allege rigging when their candidate is roundly defeated at the election, in which he is not likely to even come a distant third.
“We are constrained as a matter of public record to react to another farcical Presidential Election Poll result released by an organisation that calls itself Nextier, a public policy advisory firm that overnight turned itself into a Nigerian Gallup Poll.
“We are reacting for the sake of unsuspecting Nigerians so that they are not misled by the Patrick Okigbo-led organisation, which appears to have the agenda to create confusion and chaos in our country.”
He said for a start, Nigerians should know that promoters of Nextier are members of Mr. Peter Obi’s Presidential Campaign Council and active campaigners for the Labour Party Presidential candidate.
According to him, any poll conducted by such an intensely partisan and prejudicially tainted organisation should be taken with a pinch of salt.
“This is apart from the fact that the sample size of the so-called poll and methodology employed cannot stand any integrity test.
“It is quite ludicrous that Nextier Poll that projects a clean sweep of the South East Region at over 90 per cent of registered voters also puts Peter Obi ahead of APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu in the six south-west states including Lagos.
“Assuming without absolutely conceding that Peter Obi will enjoy home advantage in his part of the country, we then wonder why the pollsters at Nextier, if they have any modicum of respect for the intellect of Nigerians, thought the factors that will propel landslide victory for Obi in Southeast will not work for the APC candidate in his own South West base.
“Nextier Pollsters also put Labour Party ahead of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the Peoples Democratic Party Candidate in his home state of Adamawa.
“How more ridiculous can Nextier Pollsters get? Nextier Pollsters called the entire South-South Region for Labour Party at 60 per cent in Akwa-Ibom, the base of the Chairman of PDP presidential campaign council”, he stated.
Part of the statement further reads; “The partisan pollsters gave Bayelsa 62.9 per cent to Labour Party and also claimed LP would win Delta 65.9 per cent, home of PDP vice presidential candidate.
“The jesters in Nextier also claimed Obi would win Rivers by 77 per cent, Edo 76.9 per cent, and Cross Rivers 63.2 per cent. It did not matter to them that in these states, Labour Party has no serving councillor in any ward.
“Nextier’s so-called face-to-face nationwide poll summarizes that Peter Obi is the preferred candidate of 37 per cent of Nigerians with a conclusion that the presidential election will go into a run-off. We make bold to say this is wishful thinking without any basis in fact and reality.”
