Moses Ofodeme
The Nigerian Human Rights Community (NHRC), yesterday in Lagos unveiled its
opinion poll conducted which showed that the presidential candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Bola Ahmed Tinubu, led and is on course to win the 2023 general elections.
Taiwo Adeleye, Secretary-General of NHRC, a coalition of 134 civil liberty and community-based organisation while addressing newsmen said that the poll was conducted in collaboration with several consultants ahead of the presidential election scheduled for February 25.
He stated that the poll took the researchers six months to conduct, the results of which were compiled and analysed by experts.
Adeleye noted that the aim of the poll is to determine the fears and aspirations of voters across party lines towards the 2023 general election.
He stated further that the data collection and analysis focused on registered party members with PVC, which comprises men, women, youths and people living with disabilities.
“To get the truest reflection of the people’s opinions, Digital reasoning was professional and objective in conducting this exercise. Respondent were selected from each of the 36 states including the FCT.
“A total of 19,365 questionnaires were administered in all the LGAs of the federation.
Speaking further he said out of the 19,365 respondents interviewed, 7940 (41%) are voting for the candidate of the APC while others prefer PDP, 5035 (26%); LP, 4067 (21%) and NNPP, 1743 (9%) and that the other parties candidates collectively got 1162 (6%) of the respondents.
“The poll also confirm a two-horse race for the second position between Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Peter Obi of the Labour Party, while Rabiu Kwankwaso of the NNPP came a distant fourth as all other contestants together scored an insignificant total.
“It is worth noting that Tinubu’s lead in the four of the most populous states with the highest number of voters in Lagos, Kano, Oyo and Borno may have contributed to his lead.
“Tinubu’s lead is sizeable but not unassailable in Kebbi, Bauchi, Kastina, Plateau and River States because as at January 2023, the largest concentration of undecided voters reside in these states and there is a rising disaffection with the ruling party in the states. Therefore, these states are battleground yet to be conquered.
Adeleye noted that the detailed in the work and the heterogeneous nature of respondents there is an indication that the forthcoming presidential elections is between three major candidates of the APC, PDP and LP parties with Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the APC as the most dominant and widely accepted candidate followed by Atiku Abubakar of PDP and Peter Obi of the LP.
“It is worthy of note, however that the gray states (Rivers, Kebbi, Bauchi, Plateau and Kastina) which house largely undecided voters and indifferent incumbent governors who are too close to call could sway the outcome in favour of the presidential candidate who is able to harness their voting strength.
The NHRC therefore expresses appreciation to the researchers for their painstaking and meticulous work and the sense of fairness and patriotism