Peter Obi Polls for the Win (Again!)
It’s not too often that a poll can accurately predict an election – especially a presidential election. However, in Nigeria, the Anap Foundation and NOI polls Limited have done it again! For the third time, they’ve predicted that Peter Obi of the Labour Party is set to be the winner of the 2023 Nigerian presidential election. Let’s take a look at how they’ve managed such an impressive feat.
How They Did It
The methodology used by NOIPolls is almost exactly the same as what was used for their 2011, 2015, and 2019 polls. In all three cases, the front-runner identified by their polls ended up winning the elections. This speaks to their accuracy as well as their ability to identify who will be successful in such a large field of candidates. Even with a rather large percentage of voters who were undecided or unwilling to share who they would vote for until after voting had taken place, NOIPolls was still able to accurately predict who would win each election.
“The third Poll in the series was concluded in the first half of February 2023 and follows two earlier polls carried out (using the exact same methodology) in September and December 2022. We believe our baseline Presidential Poll published on September 15, 2022 was the first well-publicised national poll released in connection with the 2023 Presidential elections, which was followed by a Bloomberg poll published on September 28, 2022.”- Anap Foundation and NOI polls Limited
“In all those past presidential polls, the front-runner that was identified by our polls ended up winning the elections, irrespective of a rather large percentage of voters who were undecided and/or refused to indicate who their preferred candidate was.
“We have also applied the exact same methodology in our various Governorship Polls carried out in 2011, 2014, 2015, 2019 and 2022 and the methodology generally held up well. We are of course aware of some significant differences between the 2023 Presidential race and those of prior years e.g. 1) A longer Campaign season: 2) the presence of four major candidates instead of two; and 3) greater voter enthusiasm,” the poll report signed by Atedo Peterside, president and founder of the foundation, stated.
“In December 2022, we took the extra step to expand the methodology in our second Presidential Poll in this series by carrying out three different polls using sample sizes of 1,000, 2,000 and 3,000 and confirmed that (as expected) the results did not change significantly. This notwithstanding, we chose a sample size of 2,000 for our third and final poll in February 2023 as opposed to the 1,000 sample size we used for the published September and December 2022 polls.
“Our third and final poll result in February 2023 reveals that Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) remains in the lead, with Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) both trailing him. Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) emerged as the lone outsider. Peter Obi leads, with 21% of registered voters proposing to vote for him if the presidential election were to be conducted today, and 13% proposing to vote for Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu who fell in second place. Alhaji Atiku Abubakar was third with 10% and Rabiu Kwankwaso was a distant fourth with 3% of voters proposing to vote for him.”
The Importance of Polls
Polls are incredibly important when it comes to predicting elections and helping candidates form strategies to win them. If you know what people are thinking and feeling before they even go into the voting booth, you can shape your campaign accordingly and make sure it hits all of its key points in order to reach more voters and increase your chances of success on Election Day. This also allows candidates to make changes on-the-fly if they feel like certain messages aren’t resonating with audiences or if there have been major changes in public opinion since the poll was conducted.
Conclusion:
It looks like Peter Obi will once again come out on top in this year’s presidential election – but that doesn’t mean he’ll rest on his laurels! He still has plenty of work ahead of him if he wants to secure his victory; he’ll need to continue engaging with voters through campaigns and media appearances so that he can stay ahead of his competition. With polls being so important for predicting elections and helping campaigns shape their strategies accordingly, Peter Obi will need to pay close attention to them every step of the way!
