*Kwankwaso, 0.3% and SDP Candidate, 0%

Labour Party presidential candidate in the Nigeria’s 2023 election, Mr. Peter Obi, has scored 87.9 per cent in a pre 2023 campaigns opinion poll organised by Prime Business Africa, an independent Africa-focused multimedia news and analysis platform.

The result of the two-month opinion poll came as the stage was set for the 2023 general election campaigns which begins in two weeks’ time.

Prime Business Africa conducted the poll to ascertain the opinion of Nigerians on presidential candidates, posing the question “Who Would You Vote as Nigeria’s President If The 2023 Election Were To Take Place Today?”

The online opinion poll started in July and ended today, September 11, 2022. It listed major presidential candidates for the 2023 elections – Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Obi of the Labour Party, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), and Adewole Adebayo of the Social Democratic Party (SDP). ‘Others,’ and ‘None’ were also listed in the voting options.

A total of 1,487 vote submissions were recorded during the poll, which allowed only one vote per person.

Obi scored a total of 1,307 votes (87.9 per cent), Tinubu had 126 votes (8.5 per cent), Atiku got 27 votes (1.8 per cent), while those who voted for Kwankwaso were five (0.3 per cent) in the pre-campaigns survey.

Data obtained from the result of the survey indicate that Adebayo of SDP had zero votes.

The option listed as ‘Others’ recorded eight votes, representing 0.5 per cent of the total vote submissions. However, 14 persons, representing 0.9 per cent of the total votes cast, chose the option of ‘None’, meaning that they are not interested in having any of the presidential candidates listed in the poll options.

The survey was to gauge the preferences of the digital media-savvy electorate as the campaign period approaches.

The three-phase polling for the 2023 presidential elections will see the second poll begin shortly after the kick-off of campaigns and end with a third category shortly before the elections take place.

This means that there will be two other surveys before the elections to determine the extent which the campaign messages and the candidates’ messaging techniques would have had on the enlightened members of the 2023 electorate who use the digital media.

Ms Loveth Ugwu, the Executive Assistant (EA) to the publisher, said that Prime Business Africa as a responsible and independent newspaper is keen on playing its watchdog role and setting the right agenda for participatory democracy and good governance in Africa.

“Our CEO and Publisher is a thorough-bred professional committed to the socio-economic development of the continent and his mandate to all of us at Newstide Publications Limited, is to place the fear of God, patriotism and common good above all. This mandate we must continue to keep,” Ms Ugwu said.