Opinion poll places Buhari ahead of Jonathan

By Samuel Ogidan
Abuja

February 23 opinion poll conducted by Alliance for Credible Election (ACE) has placed All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, ahead of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, President Goodluck Jonathan.

Presenting the 2015 general elections Pre-election Poll report yesterday, ACE said that the poll was conducted through telephone interviews with 1000 randomly selected Nigerians between February 23 and 27, 2015.

Presenting the report on behalf of ACE, a stakeholder of the organisation, Mr. Abdulwahab Ekehide, said  Buhari got 44 percent, while Jonathan got 36 percent of the poll.

He said: “Respondent was asked which candidate they plan to vote for in the 2015 presidential elections. To this, 44 percent said Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, 36 percent said President Goodluck Jonathan, 19 percent refused to give an answer to the question, while 1 per cent was undecided.

“Across the geo-political zones, the highest proportion of respondents planning to vote for General Buhari was in the North-west, (56 per cent) and the lowest proportion in the South-east (31 percent). For President Jonathan, the highest proportion was in the South-east (57 percent) and the lowest in the North-west (25 per cent).”

Fielding questions from journalists, Chairman of the occasion and chairman, partner for electoral reforms, Ezenwa Nwagwu said, “all our engagement with electoral process is to improve our country to develop the nation.”
On the use of 1000 randomly selected Nigerians, when Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared that a total of over 52 million voters are with Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs), Nwagwu said “size does not have anything to do with the outcome.”

He said the outcome of the poll would motivate the political parties to do more, work harder to improve their chances.

According to him, “the people who want our country backward are not relenting and we are not relenting, we will face them with words and statistics.”