High voter turnout may guarantee Obi’s win – Poll

A high voter turnout during the 2023 presidential election set to hold on February 25, 2023 will guarantee a win for the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, a new poll by a Nigerian intelligence company, Stears, has revealed.

According to Stears, Over 6,200 Nigerians were polled, making it the Nigerian poll with the largest sample size offline.

Stears also noted that it solved a problem that had been a limitation of all other previous polls, making it truly a groundbreaking poll.

The Head of Intelligence & Co-Founder at Stears, Michael Famoroti, while explaining the problem the poll solved, said, “Simple analysis of the poll results put Peter Obi in the lead with 27 per cent of all votes, ahead of Bola Ahmed Tinubu (15 per cent) and Atiku Abubakar (12 per cent). This is aligned with the results of other polls; however, it is hard to draw definite conclusions without examining the large portion of respondents who do not provide a candidate preference—a proportion as high as 50 per cent in previously released polls. Where other polls have been inconclusive due to the large share of silent voters, Stears’ proprietary model is able to provide answers by predicting the most likely candidate for silent voters.”

Advertisement

According to the analysis which was obtained from the website of the intelligence company by our correspondent on Tuesday, Obi is the candidate that achieved at least 25 per cent of the votes in five of the six geopolitical zones. He leads the All Progressives Congress candidate, Tinubu (four out of five), while Atiku of the Peoples Democratic Party only secures 25 per cent of the vote in two geopolitical zones.

In the summary, Stears said, “Stears model predicts a Peter Obi victory in high turnout scenario. But finally, in the more realistic low-turnout scenario, something significant happens: Tinubu usurps Obi. Stears model predicts comfortable Tinubu victory if voter turnout is low.

“The Stears electoral poll and prediction model indicates that Peter Obi is Nigeria’s most popular presidential candidate and should win the presidential ticket as long as Nigerians follow through on their stated intent to vote. But, if voter turnout looks similar to 2019, then Tinubu will win the election.”

The PUNCH reports that in 2019, despite Nigeria having a total of 82.3m registered voters, the turnout was 34.75 per cent.
This was different from 2015 when the general election witnessed a 43.65 per cent turnout of over 68 million registered voters.

According to the Independent National Electoral Commission, the 2019 general election witnessed the lowest voter turnout since Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999.