Were the pre-2023 presidential election surveys designed to promote a particular candidate, prepare grounds to discredit the outcome of the vote — or just results of a bad day in the office?
Two weeks after the February 25 presidential election, these questions are still being asked by curious observers because most of the projections on the likely winner were off-target.
There were a dozen opinion polls — without a doubt the highest ever in Nigeria’s history.
They made use of different methodologies, in some cases using similar demographics, to arrive at their forecasts.
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But like a pack of cards, most of the projections fell apart.
Most predicted victory for Peter Obi, candidate of the Labour Party, but Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) came first with 8,794,726 — or 36.61 percent of the valid votes.
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Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) polled 6,984,520 (29.07 percent) to come second, followed by Obi who scored 6,101,533 (25.40 percent), and Rabiu Kwankwaso (New Nigeria Peoples Party, NNPP) who polled 1,496,687 (6.23 per cent) votes.
Below, TheCable presents the report cards of the polling companies. Calling the winner correctly is an automatic A1. Getting it wrong is a straight F9, only mitigated by calling some states or zones correctly.
Pollsters: Stears
Who are they? Data insight providers.
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What methodology? Telephone interviews with 6,220 respondents across the 36 states and the FCT. Stratified random sampling.
What did they project? Two scenarios. If turnout was high (presumably above 29 percent, since that is what they used to determine low), Obi would win by 41 percent, followed by Tinubu with 31 percent and Atiku with 20 percent. If turnout was low, Tinubu would win with 39 percent, followed by Obi with 32 percent and Atiku with 22 percent. Obi to win Lagos and lead in north-central, south-east and south-south. Tinubu to win in south-west. Atiku to win in north-west and north-east.
Right or wrong? Got key projections right, especially with the turnout scenario analysis. Turnout was 27 percent and Tinubu won. Obi won Lagos, previously thought unthinkable. Obi won in south-east and south-south, failing in the north-central, which Tinubu claimed along with the south-west. Atiku won only north-east and lost north-west to Tinubu.
TheCable grade: A1
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Pollsters: Nextier
Who are they? Development consulting firm.
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What methodology? Nationwide face-to-face polling of 2,000 eligible voters in rural and urban communities in the 36 states and the FCT.
What did they project? Obi in the lead with 37 percent, followed by Atiku with 27 percent and Tinubu with 24 percent. Election to go into a runoff. Tinubu would not get 25 percent in Osun, Ekiti and Oyo, while Obi would win Ekiti, Lagos, Ogun and Oyo. Obi to win all south-east and south-south states. Atiku to come third in Adamawa and Obi second in Katsina.
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Right or wrong? Called Lagos, south-east and Nasarawa correctly for Obi and a few states right for the other candidates, but wrong on most of the major predictions.
TheCable grade: D7
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Pollsters: Anap/NOI
Who are they? Anap is a foundation while NOI is a polling company.
What methodology? Sample size of 2,000 respondents.
What did they project? Obi to win with 21 percent, with Tinubu coming second (13 percent) and Atiku third (10 percent). Obi was projected to win the north-central, south-east and south-south. Atiku was tipped to win the north-east and share the north-west with Tinubu, who was projected to win the south-west by 15 percent, one point better than Obi in the geo-political zone. It said 53 percent of the respondents were either silent or undecided.
Right or wrong? Obi did win south-east and south-south but fell short in the north-central. Tinubu beat Obi by a far wider margin in the south-west. Above all, Obi did not win.
TheCable grade: E8.
Pollsters: Bloomberg
Who are they? Media company.
What methodology? Polled 2,384 Nigerians via a smartphone app.
What did they project? Obi to win by 66 percent, Tinubu to get 18 percent and Atiku to score 10 percent.
Right or wrong? Absolutely wrong. It always looked like a joke.
TheCable grade: F9
Pollsters: The Governance Index
Who are they? Consulting firm. Poll commissioned by the Peter Obi Support Network (POSN).
What methodology? Not stated.
What did they project? Obi to with 14,801,944 votes, which it projected as 40 percent. Tinubu took second position with 1,200,590 votes (30 percent) and Atiku third with 8,718,396 votes (24 percent). Obi would get 25 percent in 25 states, compared to Tinubu’s 22 states and PDP’s 18 states.
Right or wrong? All wrong.
TheCable grade: F9
Pollsters: Nigerian Human Rights Community
Who are they? NGO
What methodology? A sample of 19,365 respondents from across the 36 states and FCT. Questionnaires were administered by field interviewers.
What did they project? Tinubu to win 41 percent, Atiku 26 percent and Obi 21 percent. Tinubu to win 17 states outright, Atiku and Obi to win seven each and five states too close to call.
Right or wrong? Right on key projection of Tinubu’s victory and also got most geopolitical predictions right. Wrong on winning margins and number of states to be won by Tinubu.
TheCable grade: A1
Pollsters: Polaf/BusinessDay
Who are they? Political Africa Initiative (Polaf) is an NGO. BusinessDay is a newspaper.
What methodology? Telephone conversations with 3,123,660 randomly sampled respondents spread across 165 LGAs in 20 states nationwide.
What did they project? Atiku to win with 38 percent. Tinubu to get 29 percent and place second while Obi would place third with 27 percent. Atiku to win in four of the six geo-political zones: north-west, north-east, north-central and south-south. Obi to win the south-east and Tinubu to win the south-west.
Right or wrong? Mostly wrong. Atiku came second, winning only one zone. Tinubu won three zones while Obi got two. Atiku did not meet the 25 percent requirement in 25 states and FCT as projected.
TheCable grade: F9
Pollsters: E-i-E/SBM Intelligence
Who are they? Enough is Enough (E-i-E) is a civil society organisation. SBM Intelligence is a geo-political intelligence platform.
What methodology? SBM Intelligence polled 11,534 respondents in the 36 states and FCT — 8,921 in person and 2,613 by phone.
What did they project? Tinubu to win the popular vote but will not get the 25 percent requirement in more than 20 states. Atiku to meet the threshold in 27 states and Obi in 25 states. This would lead to a runoff. Also predicted Atiku would win Borno, Tinubu Kano and Obi Ondo.
Right or wrong? Right on Tinubu winning the popular vote but wrong on him not meeting the 25 percent spread and the possibility of a runoff. Tinubu met the spread in 30 states, Atiku in 21 and Obi in only 16.
TheCable grade: C6
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