September 29, 2022/CSL Research
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) officially flagged off campaigns for the 2023 general elections yesterday. The stage is now fully set for the various political parties to unveil their manifestos, especially the three frontline parties- the All-Progressive Congress (APC), the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP) whose presidential candidates are Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi respectively. Atiku Abubakar on Wednesday kicked off his presidential campaign with a launch of his memoirs published in three different books amid the inauguration of the presidential campaign council.
It was, however, observed that prominent members of the party, who are believed to be members of the aggrieved Wike’s group were absent at the venue. Some of those absent were the governor of Oyo State, Seyi Makinde, the governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom, the governor of Abia State, Okezie Ikpeazu, the governor of Enugu State, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, and the former deputy chairman of the party, Bode George.
Meanwhile, based on a Bloomberg opinion poll, a clear majority of respondents said they intend to vote for Peter Obi, a former governor of Anambra State and the presidential candidate of the Labour Party. The results of the survey conducted for Bloomberg news by Premise Data Corp. were published on Wednesday, 28 September 2022, as the official campaign to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari kicked off. Of the 92% of participants who said they had decided how to vote, 72% named Peter Obi as their first choice. Of those who were still unsure, 45% said the 61-year-old was their preferred candidate.
The candidates of the two parties that have been in power since the restoration of democracy in 1999 fared less well. Bola Tinubu of the ruling APC garnered 16% of decided voters and 23% of those yet to make up their minds while Atiku Abubakar of the main opposition PDP got 9% and 17% respectively. The San Francisco-headquartered data company surveyed 3,973 Nigerians from 5-20 September. Respondents to the app-based poll were selected from quotas developed
by age, gender, and location across the country’s six geopolitical zones. Results were then
weighted against the original quotas to ensure national representation.
Similarly, based on a poll which was commissioned by the Anap Foundation and conducted by NOI Polls Limited earlier in the month, Peter Obi led the race with 21% of votes in the poll. His votes gave him an 8% lead over APC’s Bola Tinubu and PDP’s Atiku Abubakar who each got 13% of the votes to end up as joint second in the poll. The presidential candidate of the Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), Rabiu Kwankwaso, was fourth with 3% of the votes.
Undecided voters and those who prefer not to reveal their preferred candidate summed up to 32% and 15% respectively. While Peter Obi’s acceptance has continued to grow, especially among the youths and the educated elite, we realise that opinion polls are not anything to go by in Nigeria. The electoral law requires that the successful presidential candidate obtains both a simple majority and 25% of the popular vote across two-thirds of Nigeria’s 36 states. This factor, we believe, will limit Peter Obi’s chance of victory. Also, the internal problems within the PDP does not bode well for the party either.
