The Nigerian Human Rights Community, NHRC, has projected that the presidential candidate of the All Progressive Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, will win the February 25, 2023 presidential election.
The position was declared on Thursday following the outcome of the opinion poll the NHRC released.
According to the NHRC, Tinubu held a significant lead and was on course to win the 2023 general elections.
The Secretary-General of NHRC, Taiwo Adeleye, said the poll was conducted in collaboration with several consultants and that it took the researchers six months to conduct.
The results, he said, were compiled and analysed by experts.
Adeleye said the aim of the poll was to determine the fears and aspirations of voters across party lines towards the general election.
He stated that the data collection and analysis focused on registered party members with their Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs), which comprises men, women, youths and people living with disabilities.
He said: “To get the truest reflection of the people’s opinions, Digital reasoning was professional and objective in conducting this exercise. Respondent were selected from each of the 36 states including the FCT. A total of 19,365 questionnaires were administered in all the LGAs of the federation.”
Adeleye said out of the 19,365 respondents interviewed, 7940 (41%) are voting for the candidate of the APC while others prefer PDP, 5035 (26%); LP, 4067 (21%) and NNPP, 1743 (9%) and that the other parties candidates collectively got 1162 (6%) of the respondents.
He added: “The poll also confirm a two-horse race for the second position between Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Peter Obi of the Labour Party, while Rabiu Kwankwaso of the NNPP came a distant fourth as all other contestants together scored an insignificant total.
“It is worth noting that Tinubu’s lead in the four of the most populous states with the highest number of voters in Lagos, Kano, Oyo and Borno may have contributed to his lead.
“Tinubu’s lead is sizeable but not unassailable in Kebbi, Bauchi, Kastina, Plateau and River States because as at January 2023, the largest concentration of undecided voters reside in these states and there is a rising disaffection with the ruling party in the states. Therefore, these states are battleground yet to be conquered.”
Adeleye noted that the details in the work and the heterogeneous nature of respondents there were an indication that the forthcoming presidential elections is between three major candidates of the APC, PDP and LP parties with Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the APC as the most dominant and widely accepted candidate followed by Atiku Abubakar of PDP and Peter Obi of the LP.
“It is worthy of note, however that the gray states (Rivers, Kebbi, Bauchi, Plateau and Kastina) which house largely undecided voters and indifferent incumbent governors who are too close to call could sway the outcome in favour of the presidential candidate who is able to harness their voting strength,” he said.
