Bloomberg Poll Indicates Buhari’s Successor

<h4>Bloomberg Poll<&sol;h4>&NewLine;<p>OpenLife Nigeria has reliably gathered that<br &sol;>&NewLine;Nigerian businessman and ex-governor Peter Obi remains the top choice to become the nation’s next president&comma; according to a new Bloomberg poll&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Two-thirds of respondents said they intend to vote for Obi&comma; a third-party candidate&comma; in elections scheduled for February 25&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;The results of the survey conducted for Bloomberg News by Premise Data Corporation were published on Friday – 15 days before the vote to choose President Muhammadu Buhari’s successor&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Of the 93&percnt; of participants&comma; who said they’ve decided how to vote&comma; 66&percnt; named Obi as their preferred choice&period; Obi scored a slightly higher 72&percnt; among decided respondents in an earlier Premise poll that was released by Bloomberg in September as the official election campaign kicked off&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>While Obi’s campaign has generated a momentum that the two established forces in Nigerian politics were not expecting&comma; the ruling All Progressives Congress &lpar;APC&rpar; and main opposition Peoples Democratic Party &lpar;PDP&rpar; insist that he cannot triumph on Feb&period; 25&period; They say his appeal is too thinly spread across the country’s states and have derided polling that has almost universally put the candidate of the much smaller Labour Party &lpar;LP&rpar; in first place&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Still&comma; Obi has emerged as the most popular candidate in six polls including the two surveys conducted by Premise for Bloomberg&period; Another poll released this week by Lagos-based media and data company Stears predicted that Obi will win in the event of high turnout&comma; but lose to Bola Tinubu of the APC if participation is weak&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Dismissed by his opponents as a &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;social media candidate&comma;” Obi’s rise has been fuelled by disenchantment with the status quo&period; His campaign has attracted an enthusiastic following known as &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Obidients” — initially online but increasingly at rallies and marches — even if the man they wish to help to Nigeria’s biggest ever electoral upset hardly has an anti-establishment background&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Pollsters say they account for Nigeria’s electoral makeup when designing their surveys&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>San Francisco-based Premise polled 2&comma;384 Nigerians from Jan&period; 26 to Feb&period; 4 via a smartphone app&period; Submissions were selected from quotas developed by age&comma; gender and location across the country’s six geopolitical zones&comma; the company said&period; Results were then weighted against the original quotas to ensure national representation&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>About 44&percnt; of Nigerians own smartphones&comma; according to the Alliance for Affordable Internet&period; Premise estimates that the access rate rises to 74&percnt; among the voting age population&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The candidates of the two parties that have ruled Nigeria since the restoration of democracy in 1999 finished in a distant second and third&period; Tinubu obtained 18&percnt; of decided voters and the PDP’s Atiku Abubakar tallied 10&percnt;&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;