Premium times:
Presidential aide abruptly closes poll as Jonathan
marginally overtakes Buhari
The Special Assistant to the President on New Media, Reno Omokri, on
Sunday night suddenly closed an online poll he organised almost immediately
President Goodluck Jonathan overtook former Head of State, Muhammadu
Buhari, in the survey.
At the end of the poll, the president got 13,111 votes representing 49.3
percent, while Mr. Buhari got 12,875 votes, representing 48.41 percent. The
president had less than one percent lead over Mr. Buhari.
Six hundred and nine voters, representing 2.29 percent of the total votes, were
undecided.
Sources close to Mr. Omokri said he decided to hurriedly close the poll in
apprehension that Mr. Buhari’s supporters might charge back online to vote
the former head of state to an unassailable victory.
Mr. Omokri did not indicate the duration of the poll in the beginning and
rushing to close it after the president got a slim lead is like changing the rules
in the middle of the game, said Femi Falade, a development expert and school
owner in Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State.
“That’s clear rigging,” Mr. Falade said.
PREMIUM TIMES had reported how Mr. Buhari led in the polls for three
days in what is seen as an embarrassing and unforeseen outcome for the
president’s camp.
Several aides and loyalists of the president were mobilised extensively to
reverse the trend in the last 24 hours.
Insiders in the president’s camp said presidency and administration officials
as well as the top hierarchy of the governing Peoples Democratic Party felt
“deeply embarrassed” by the direction of the poll and mobilised supporters of
the president in and outside Nigeria to quickly get online and vote in his
favour.
“Phone calls were made to supporters of the president in the Transformation
Ambassador of Nigeria (TAN), Goodluck Support Groups (GSG), Gejites and
other groups sympathetic to the president,” one of our sources said.
“They were being pressured to get online and reverse the results in favour of
the president, even if means voting multiple times with multiple devices,”
said the source who preferred not to be named for security reasons.
A source close to the creator of the poll, Mr. Omokri, also told PREMIUM
TIMES that the presidential aide has a mandate to ensure the poll did not
close until Mr. Buhari is “roundly defeated”.
Most online polls have time frames within which they are conducted. The poll
by news website, Sahara Reporters, ran for 24 hours. But Mr. Omokri’s ran for
four days and closed abruptly.
Buhari still in the lead
Despite the efforts to garner support for the president, which has seen his
fortune leaping from 2,455 votes, representing 26.75 percent as at last night,
to 12,016 votes, representing, 48.46 percent as at 4:27 p.m. on Sunday, Mr.
Buhari remains in the lead.
The former head of state, who led the president with 6,411 votes, representing
69.87 percent on Saturday night, was seen leading with 12,198 votes,
representing 49.2 percent at 4:27 p.m. on Sunday.
Also, while 310 persons, representing 3.38 percent were undecided last night;
the number of undecided voters increased to 580 votes, representing 2.34
percent.
Background
On October 15, the day former Head of State, Muhammadu Buhari, declared
his intention to run for president in the 2015 election, news website, Sahara
Reporters, activated an opinion poll asking Nigerians to indicate who they
would vote for if the election were to hold that day between Mr. Buhari (as
candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC) and President Goodluck
Jonathan ( as candidate of the Peoples Democratic, PDP).
The poll lasted for only 24 hours, and out of a total of 15,435 persons that
voted, Mr. Buhari got 12,246 votes, representing 79 percent of the total votes
cast, while President Jonathan got 3189 votes, representing 21 percent of the
total votes.
However, ostensibly to counter the survey conducted by Sahara Reporters, Mr.
Jonathan’s aide, Mr. Omokri, set up a similar poll asking almost the same
question posed by the news website.
His poll, which is still running on his blog, “Build Up Nigeria” posed the
question: “If the Nigerian Presidential election were held today, who would
you vote for between President Goodluck Jonathan and General Muhammadu
Buhari?”.
Mr. Omokri’s poll began a day after Mr. Buhari declared to run, but unlike the
one ran by Sahara Reporters, which has since closed, the one by Build Up
Nigeria only closed suddenly after Mr. Jonathan leapt to a marginal lead.
Online Poll not scientific
Online polls, such as the ones by Sahara Reporters and Mr. Reno are not
representative and do not necessarily represent public opinion.
“It categorically does not represent public opinion – at best, it may coincide
with it,” the BBC says in itsGuideline on Opinion Polls, Surveys,
Questionnaires, Votes and Straw Polls.
“Online votes are particularly vulnerable to campaigns, lobby groups and
individuals who seek to organise mass or multi voting. For that reason, some
highly controversial issues are not, normally, suitable for online voting as the
risk of being hijacked is too great,” the guideline adds.
Below is the result of the poll after it closed.

olu77:
We'll end up having both online and offline president in 2015

In a re-election held on Saturday in Buruku, Tiav scored 25,988 votes to defeat Mr John Tine of the Labour Party, who scored 3,602.

Mr Sekav Iyortyom of the All Progressive Congress scored 395 votes.

Raiders:
Elections in Nigeria are not won on online polls.

olu77:
We'll end up having both online and offline president in 2015

chukwumafabian:
Elections aren't won on facebook n nairaland. Ask Chris Ngige