Peter Gregory Obi, the Labour Party’s presidential candidate, has been ranked as the most popular candidate among the key contenders for the 2023 presidential election in a recent poll.
Bifotad.com reported that the Kwakol Research Institute conducted the poll.
The survey found that more than 50% of respondents, including women, the unemployed, civil workers, members of the private sector, and students, particularly those enrolled in tertiary institutions, thought the Labour Party’s presidential candidate was the best option.
Unlike most polls, Kwakol gathered most of its responses from rural dwellers. “It is important to note that, unlike the majority of the polls in Nigeria, we polled more registered voters in rural Nigeria than registered voters in semi-urban Nigeria and urban Nigeria, respectively,” it stated.
The research organization also considered a number of other aspects before drawing its findings, such as the issue of income classification, educational background, employment status, and sex.
In all, respondents claimed they would vote for the Labour Party in 52.80 percent of cases, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 18.9 percent of cases, the All Progressives Congress in 15.6 percent of cases, and the New Nigeria Peoples Party in 10.4 percent of cases (NNPP).
It is important to note that respondents to the survey came from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds and the six geographic zones. According to the poll’s distribution, 45 percent of respondents live in rural areas, while 28 percent and 27 percent of respondents, respectively, live in semi-urban and metropolitan areas.
A further breakdown revealed that the agency’s estimates of the numerical strength of the Northwest and Southwest geopolitical zones, which came to 25.27 percent and 19 percent, respectively, and the Southsouth and Southeast, which came to 13.44 percent and 12.13 percent, agreed with widely cited census data.
Young people between the ages of 18 and 69 were more accepting of Obi, with 56% of those between the ages of 35 and 49 who had valid Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) stating they would support him in the election on February 25.
Over 70% of respondents who work in the private sector, regardless of their occupational background, stated they would vote for Obi and his Labour Party. Civil servants closely followed this performance, with 66.9% of respondents saying they would support him for president in the election on Saturday of next week. Of the students, 53.4% stated they would support him in the election. 52.3 percent of responders who were unemployed said they will vote for him.
Kwakol offered two scenarios that could deviate from the poll findings. First, it was acknowledged that Obi wasn’t absolutely certain of winning the presidential election the next Saturday, even though the sample size of 1,000 respondents wasn’t sufficiently representative. You might wonder why.
Elections in Nigeria have always been “characterized by electoral violence, terror violence, sectionalist violence, and voter intimidation,” it stated.
For the first scenario, it was predicted that in the event of violent attacks in the North Central geopolitical zone, voter turnout would decline significantly. “A situation that would have an impact on the number of votes available for the Labour Party and the NNPP,” it said. This leaves the two major political parties to slug it out.
In the north-east geopolitical region, “if an outburst of violence by non-state actors occurs in the northwest, this will significantly reduce voter turnout, and the only parties to benefit from traditional voting patterns will be the PDP and the APC, whose strongholds are in the geopolitical zone.”
For the Northwest, in the event of a breakout of violence, “all the frontline political parties will be adversely affected, but the APC will benefit from the 2019 voting patterns despite a significantly lower voter turnout.”
While Kwakol stated that “we do not expect to see an outburst of violence from the militants in the South-South geopolitical zone, but we suspect that hired political thuggery could be a recurring theme during the election, particularly in River and Delta,” it was feared that concerns from the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) militant wing—the Eastern Security Network (ESN)—could reduce the numerical chance of Obi. We believe that this is most likely a result of particular interests for the required 25 votes in each state’s election. We also believe that pro-LP strongholds in the area may be targeted in an effort to increase voter apprehension and reduce turnout.