Atiku Will Win The Presidential Election, New Research Reveals

An opinion poll released yesterday has predicted a win by Atiku Abubakar, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, over the incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressive Congress, APC, in the February 16 Presidential Election.

The research on “Public Attitudes In Nigeria “which concluded on January 19, was conducted by an international survey research firm operating in Nigeria, under the supervision of Williams and Associates of Salem, Massachusetts.

The data was collected using in-person interviews, face-to-face methodology by trained professional interviewers using a multi-stage stratification proportionate to population sample distribution, with random selection of households and respondents using the Kish method.

Respondents across the six geo-political zones in the country were asked to respond to different set of questions on the presidential candidates and the issues facing the country.

Asked whether President Muhammadu Buhari had done well to deserve re-election, only 36% of Nigerians believed so while 64% think he did not deserve re-election. He got his highest nod for re-election in the North East where 48% of those sampled believed he did well. He got the least approval in the North Central where only 29% believed he deserved re-election.

Most respondents interviewed believed Unemployment, poverty and corruption were the three major problems facing the country. Surprisingly only three percent believed herdsmen menace was a problem in the country while only one percent see Boko Haram as an issue.

74 % of respondents said they were very likely to vote in the forthcoming election while only two percent said they were unlikely to vote, with 88% of the respondents saying they had collected their PVCs.

The PDP had a 10- point lead on the question of which party respondents would vote in the election. 32% said APC while 42% would vote for the PDP .

Similarly, on the question of which candidate respondents would vote, 45% favoured Atiku Abubakar while only 33% picked Muhammadu Buhari. Nine percent picked Kingsley Moghalu, 8 percent for Omoyele Sowore while Donald Duke came last with 6 percent.

Also, 47% of those surveyed favoured the team of Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi over Buhari/Osinbajo with both teams scoring 49% and 37% respectively.
Respondents were also asked to pick the candidate they believed would win the presidential election regardless of their choice, and 54% picked Atiku Abubakar while 38% said it would be Muhammadu Buhari.

Atiku also enjoyed a wide 42% differential in favorability rating over Buhari in the survey. While 62 % had favourable perception of Atiku, only 44% viewed Buhari positively. 31% had unfavourable opinion of Atiku but 55 percent said they hold an unfavourable opinion of Buhari.

The research also sampled opinion on the leadership qualities of the two leading candidates. His performances during the presidential campaigns seem to have helped improve Atiku’s profile as a leader while they diminished that of Buhari. Between August 2018 and January 2019, Atiku’s profile as a leader rose from an average 16% in August to 55% on average in January while Buhari has dropped from 39% to 36%.

Atiku also defeated Buhari on the question of who would be able to solve most of the challenges facing the country. Even on the issue of security and insurgency, most respondents thought Atiku would do better than Buhari. On the two issues, it is 57% to 37% and 48% to 44%.

But more people thought Buhari would do better on the issue of anti-corruption, with 52% going with him as against 41% for Atiku.

According to the research firm, it conducted 1,550 interviews with those who had registered for a PVC while the Interviews were conducted in English and local dialects as appropriate.