APC kicks as Nextier poll puts Peter Obi ahead of Tinubu, others

The All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) has rejected the election poll result conducted by Nextier, a public policy advisory firm, which put Peter Obi, Labour Party presidential candidate, ahead of Bola Tinubu, its candidate.

A fresh poll by Nextier SPD, an African-based international development consulting firm, released at the weekend, showed that the Labour Party leading with 37 percent followed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with 27 percent and the All Progressives Congress (APC) with 24 percent.

According to the most recent Nextier Poll, Obi has the greatest net favourability among the leading presidential contenders, placing him ahead of his closest rivals, PDP’s Atiku Abubakar and APC’s Bola Tinubu.

The poll, released on Saturday, February 5, 2023, is the second national face-to-face survey conducted by Nextier SPD and shows that a significant percentage of registered voters, 72% have chosen their presidential candidate.

At the same time, among the major political parties, the Labour Party has the greatest net favourability.

According to the firm’s website, Nextier SPD, employs evidence-based research and policy to create and strengthen knowledge and skills for managing society.

Nextier poll

The report added, “On Friday, January 27, 2023, Nextier used 144 enumerators to poll 3,000 respondents in all states in Nigeria.

“The enumerators conducted the polls in both urban and rural communities.

“The polls were conducted face-to-face and represented the age and gender demographics in each state of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory.

“Only registered voters who have collected their Permanent Voters Cards were polled.

But Bayo Onanuga, Director of Media and Publicity of APC PCC in a statement on Sunday night alleged that promoters of Nextier are members of Obi’s Presidential Campaign Council and active campaigners for the Labour Party Presidential Candidate.

“Any poll conducted by such an intensely partisan and prejudicially tainted organisation should be taken with a pinch of salt.”

The statement faulted the claim of the Nextier that Peter Obi would sweep the presidential election result in South West, incidentally the geopolitical zone of the APC presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Onanuga also dismissed as ridiculous, the poll result which gave the edge to Peter Obi in Adamawa, the home state of Atiku Abubakar.

The statement read in part: “It is quite ludicrous that Nextier Poll that projects a clean sweep of the South East Region at over 90% of registered voters also puts Peter Obi ahead of APC Presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the six South West States including Lagos.

“Assuming without absolutely conceding that Peter Obi will enjoy home advantage in his part of the country, we then wonder why the pollsters at Nextier, if they have any modicum of respect for the intellect of Nigerians, thought the factors that will propel landslide victory for Obi in Southeast will not work for the APC candidate in his own South West base.

“Nextier Pollsters also put Labour Party ahead of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the Peoples Democratic Party Candidate in his home state of Adamawa. How ridiculous can Nextier Pollsters get?

“Nextier Pollsters called the entire South-South Region for Labour Party at 60% in Akwa-Ibom, the base of the Chairman of PDP presidential campaign council.

“The partisan pollsters gave Bayelsa 62.9% to Labour Party and also claimed LP would win Delta 65.9 %, home of PDP Vice Presidential Candidate.

“The jesters in Nextier also claimed Obi would win Rivers by 77.8%, Edo 76.9% and Cross Rivers by 63.2%. It did not matter to them that in these states, Labour Party has no serving councillor in any ward.

“Nextier’s so-called face-to-face nationwide poll summarises that Peter Obi is the preferred candidate of 37% of Nigerians with a conclusion that the Presidential election will go into a run-off.

“We make bold to say this is wishful thinking without any basis in fact and reality.

“It is important to alert Nigerians and the international community that the Pollsters at Nextier are working for the Labour Party and their poll results are all cooked up, far away from reality.

“We suspect that their first and second fallacious poll results are a pretext to cause political crisis and riots in Nigeria after the February 25.

They may be preparing the ground for violent protest by Obi supporters who will allege rigging when their candidate is roundly defeated at the election, in which he is not likely to even come a distant 3rd.

“We want to state categorically that Peter Obi is not a major contender in the coming presidential election in Nigeria and no fantasy and fairytale poll can change the material facts.

“We want to put it on record that Nextier Poll is useless for three reasons: “First, the sample size of 3,000 is statistically too insignificant in an election with over 93 million registered voters and admits greater margins of error than claimed.

“Second, the distribution of the sample neither reflects voter demographics nor variations in voter turnout across states.

“Third, the main objective of Nextier Poll is to report a predetermined conclusion so that when Labour Party loses by a wide margin, its rabid supporters can embark on another violent protest, similar to the destructive #ENDSARS riots of 2020.”