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Tag: opinion poll

  • Opinion poll tips Oke to win

    Opinion poll tips Oke to win

    Alliance for Democracy (AD) candidate, Chief Olusola Oke, may emerge tops in the November 26 governorship election in Ondo State, if the outcome of an independent opinion poll conducted in the state to determine the possible choice of the people is anything to go by.

    In the opinion poll, Oke was followed by former Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) President, Mr. Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Barrister Jimoh Ibrahim, the candidate of the Senator Ali Modu Sheriff-led faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in that order.

    37 per cent of respondents across the state said they would prefer Oke to succeed Governor Olusegun Mimiko at the Alagbaka Government House while 22 per cent opted for Akeredolu.

    16 per cent of respondents went for Ibrahim, Dr Olu Agunloye of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) -14 per cent, while 11per cent said they were either undecided or indifferent.

    The questionnaires were designed around the aspirations of four candidates considered to be leading contenders in the battle to succeed Governor Mimiko.

    They are Oke of the AD, Akeredolu of  theAPC, Ibrahim of Sheriff-led PDP faction and Agunloye of the SDP.

    Former Commissioner for Justice and Attorney-General in the state, Mr. Eyitayo Jegede, Mimiko’s preferred candidate, who belongs to the Senator Ahmed Makarfi PDP faction, may have lost out in the governorship race as a result of the supremacy battle between the two PDP camps which is still raging in court.

    Jegede’s name was replaced by that of Ibrahim in the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)’s list of candidates for the poll based on a court order.

    In the opinion poll conducted across the three senatorial districts in the state- Ondo Central, Ondo North and Ondo South- a total of 3000 respondents, many of whom are registered voters in the state, were sampled. Their ages range from 25 to 55 years.

    Oke’s leading points, according to the poll, emerged from the respondents’ view that he is a grassroots man with loads of integrity.

    Four questions were asked each of the respondents. They are: (1) Which of the four leading candidates would you trust with your vote? (2) Which of them has the best programme for the state? (3) Which political party do you think would be best for Ondo State? (4) Which of the candidates do you consider most grassroots-oriented?

    3,000 respondents were polled across the three senatorial districts in the state. They were polled in Akure, Ondo and Idanre in Ondo Central; Okitipupa, Ilaje and Ese-Odo in Ondo South and Owo, Ikare, Akoko North West in Ondo North.

    770 respondents were randomly picked and interviewed in Akure, 400 in Ondo township and 230 in Idanre, all in Ondo Central.

    Responding to the question as to which of the candidates they would trust, if they were voting on Saturday, over 50 per cent of them mentioned Oke.

    He was closely followed by Akeredolu aka Aketi as a few others also picked him.

    Also, a total of 931 of the 1,400 respondents polled in Ondo Central picked the AD when they were asked which party would be best for the state.

    In Ondo North, precisely in Aketi’s hometown of Owo, Akoko North West and Ikare, where a total of 900 people were polled by the survey officials, a majority of the respondents also picked Oke as the most grassroots-oriented candidate, with some describing him as a ‘grassroots man’, ‘man of the people’, while some other candidates were seen as aloof, with a few respondents describing them as ‘Abuja politicians.’

    The remaining 700 respondents were polled in Ondo South, where Oke and Ibrahim hail from.

    The survey was administered by Poll Consult which specialises in opinion poll and survey. It is based in Lagos with offices in state capitals in the South West, including Akure in Ondo State.

  • Presidential election: Opinion poll places Buhari ahead of Jonathan

    AN opinion poll conducted by Alliance for Credible Election (ACE) on the rescheduled presidential election has placed the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, ahead of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, President Goodluck Jonathan.

    Presenting the pre-election poll report yesterday, ACE said it was conducted through telephone interviews with 1,000 randomly selected Nigerians between February 23 and 27, 2015.

    Abdulwahab Ekehide, who presented the report, said Buhari got 44 per cent, while Jonathan got 36 per cent from the poll.

    “Respondents were asked which candidate they plan to vote for in the 2015 presidential elections, 44 per cent said Gen. Buhari, 36 per cent said President Jonathan and 19 per cent refused to give an answer to the question, while one per cent was undecided.

    “Across the geo-political zones, the highest proportion of respondents planning to vote for Gen. Buhari were in the Northwest, (56 per cent) and the lowest proportion in the Southeast (31 per cent).

    “For President Jonathan, the highest proportion was in the Southeast (57 per cent) and the lowest in the Northwest (25 per cent),” he said.

    Fielding questions from reporters, chairman of the occasion and Chairman, Partner for Electoral Reforms, Ezenwa Nwagwu, said: “All our engagements with electoral process is to improve and develop the nation.”

    On the use of 1,000 randomly selected Nigerians, when the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared that over 52 million voters were with the Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs), Nwagwu said: “Size does not have anything to do with the outcome.”

    He argued that the outcome of the poll would motivate the political parties to do more and work harder to improve their chances.

     

     

  • APC: PDP is paranoid over opinion poll

    APC: PDP is paranoid over opinion poll

    THE Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is a victim of self-inflicted paranoia following its panic reaction to a yet-to-be conducted opinion poll, the All Progressives Congress (APC) said yesterday.

    APC’s National Publicity Secretary Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who said this in a statement in Abuja, added that the PDP had only succeeded in committing an unforced error by its alleged frenzied reaction.

    The statement, however, noted that the PDP’s reaction was understandable, “considering the fact that the party is being pounded from all sides by both seen and unseen forces.”

    “The PDP”, according to the statement, “is behaving like a punch-drunk boxer, who started flailing at everything and everyone, but his opponent, having been disoriented by a staccato of body blows.”

    “Had it not been so, a party that is urging a focus on serious campaign issues would not have picked on the imaginary outcome of a public opinion poll,” the party added.

    APC said the PDP was not in a position to advise anyone on the conduct of opinion polls, when all it engaged in over the years had been doctored and incestuous opinion polls.

    The statement also reads: “It is said that he who must come to equity must come with clean hands. It is apparent that this dictum is lost on the petrified PDP. This is a party that has been celebrating the outcome of the regular polls by the NOI Polls, when it is glaring that the brain behind this poll is a key minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. NOI stands for the initials of this minister, and discerning Nigerians are aware of this.

    ‘’Because the NOI polls have been doctored to achieve a pre-determined end, the PDP made itself to believe it was doing well all along; when indeed it was leading Nigeria to a dark alley of economic and infrastructural collapse, massive unemployment as well as pervasive and unprecedented insecurity.

    ‘’Now that the die is cast and even the most ardent supporters of the PDP have realised that the game is up and are jumping off its sinking ship, the party has come to realise its folly. How then can such a party advise another party on how to conduct a public opinion poll?

    “Even without any poll, Nigerians have come to realise that the presidential candidate of the APC, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, stands head and shoulders above his PDP counterpart. Not only physically, but in terms of integrity, capability, vision, achievements and antecedents. Since these are the issues that will count during the forthcoming polls, the PDP can as well start learning how to be in opposition.”

    It flayed the PDP for casting aspersions on the integrity of the media by saying the APC is “intensifying efforts to compromise some section of the media.”

    “The PDP has consistently shown nothing, but disdain for the media, which was at the forefront of the fight for the democracy that the do-nothing folks at the PDP are now enjoying, undeservedly. If the media was so easy to compromise, it would have been compromised a long time ago and perhaps Nigeria would not have benefited from its selfless battle against military dictatorship.

    “This lesson is lost on the trifling PDP; hence it has continued to hold the media in disdain – the latest instance of which is the unnecessary accusation of its being compromised. Our honest advice to those who did nothing when the epic battle to install this democracy was going on, but are now pretending to be its custodians, is that they should not crash it on the altar of careless, inciting and offensive statements,” APC said.

  • Aregbesola ‘ll win by 73%, says opinion poll

    Aregbesola ‘ll win by 73%, says opinion poll

    Osun State Governor Rauf Aregbesola will win the August 9 governorship election by 73 per cent, if there is a free and fair election, TSN-RSM, a survey group, has predicted.

    The research firm, which is a member of Gallup International, also reported that Aregbesola’s main challenger and candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Iyiola Omisore, is behind by 54 points.

    However, the survey, which was conducted in Osun State between June and last month, also said that public confidence in the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has dropped by 10 points.

    The survey stated: “The APC continues to dominate the political landscape in Osun State, judging by its performance on key indicators evaluated. It scored highest and increased in rating on first mention, sympathy and voting intention.”

    It added: “The governor, Rauf Aregbesola, is the candidate of choice by Osun voters with 73 per cent lead over other candidates. This is a clear indication that the choice of Osun voters in the next governorship race is Governor Rauf Aregbesola.”

    Omisore polled 19 per cent, representing a two percent decline from the earlier survey.

    “The governor remains the main voting choice. Voting choice for Senator Omisore declined by two per cent and seemed not to pose a threat to the incumbent’s chances of re-election as he remains firmly ahead of the race.”

    “Not only is the APC the most preferred party in Osun State, it has largely retained this goodwill from way back in the past. It was the party that most people claimed to have voted for in the last election and it is still the party with the highest chances of winning the election again. More importantly, the gap by which it outperforms the opposition, continues to widen and more convincing in the survey.”

    In the report, the APC is rated very high as its top-of-mind and awareness increased from 75 per cent to 78 per cent over the two polls, followed by the PDP with 18 per cent, a drop of three per cent from 21 per cent in the first study.

    The Labour Party (LP) came third, with a negligible one per cent. Furthermore, the “electorate choice” for the APC is now 70 per cent, boosted by one per cent increment. Nineteen percent indicated that they would vote for the PDP, which represented another three per cent drop. The electorate’s choice for the LP remained one percent.

    The report stressed:  “While Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola is more known than his party, Senator Iyiola Omisore is less known than his party. The top-of-mind awareness of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola increased to 85 per cent (from 79 per cent), affinity increased from 72 per cent to 74 per cent and chances of being re-elected increased from 71 per cent to 73 per cent.”

    “Conversely, it is a tale of decline for the man in the second place, Senator Omisore. For the top-of-mind awareness, the PDP candidate dropped to 13 per cent from 19 per cent, affinity fell to 19 per cent from 21per cent and chances of being elected declined to 19 per cent from 21 per cent.”

    The analysis showed that while the affinity of the Osun electorate towards the APC increased by four per cent, the PDP failed to maintain its connection to the people. The positive perception of the APC by Osun voters stood at 83 per cent while on 17 per cent viewed the APC as unfavourable.

    According to the polls, 98 per cent of respondents said they would participate in the August 9 election. This suggests that the people are prepared for any eventuality in election.

    The survey also showed the strength of the candidates and their parties in the local government areas across the state.

    “The repeat of the APC high chance to win in all the local government areas (LGAs) seem to play out again in the next election. The APC is poised to repeat this feat, except in Ife Central and Ife East. The PDP seemed well-positioned to win these two LGAs. The LP’s weakness is imminent across all the LGAs.

    “The incumbent’s chances of being reelected remain same across the LGAs, except in Ife Central and Ife East. The incumbent’s chances of re-election remain high and leads his closest rival by a good margin of 54 per cent – an increment of four per cent over the last survey.”

    But the voters’ confidence in the INEC dropped to from 57 per cent to 67 per cent.

    Statistically, the research firm stated that that “the margin of error for the survey is “plus or minus five per cent, with 95 per cent level of confidence.”

  • ‘Ondo SMS opinion poll result not true’

    Ahead of the October 20 governorship election in Ondo State, a political group, Ondo Democracy Fighters (ODF), yesterday faulted a short messaging service (SMS) opinion poll recently conducted by Gallop Polls Nigeria Limited.

    By the result released in Akure, the state capital, Gallop Polls said the ruling Labour Party (LP) candidate, Governor Olusegun Mimiko, polled 77 per cent of the votes.

    Its Principal Consultant Anthony Chigbo said 14,500 voters from the state participated in the MTN SMS opinion poll.

    According to him, Mimiko polled 11,164; the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) candidate, Mr. Oluwwarotimi Akeredolu (SAN) scored 1,420, and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) standard bearer, Olusola Oke, polled 1,230 votes.

    But ODF alleged that the Gallop Poll was sponsored by the state government to create the impression that the LP was the most popular party in the state.

    A statement by its state Coordinator, Sowore Fabuluje, alleged that the opinion poll was stage-managed by the government.

    The group said: “As part of efforts to ensure that the poll favoured their sponsors, the group only gave the chance to electorate who are MTN subscribers to participate in the poll. But we were aware that in the previous polls conducted in other states by an independent agency, all the telecommunications companies’ subscribers were allowed to participate.”

    It noted that before the poll was conducted, the public was not properly enlightened, “except those who are always conversant with daily newspapers”.