The Economist and its double standard poll prediction

By Sunday James Akinloye

For those who take The Economist prediction as gospel, you might be in for a long haul because they do have a handful of failed poll predictions that has hurt their believers hard in times past.

In 2016, they put Hillary Clinton to the sword by falsely making her and her campaign team believe that they will win. Here’s how The Economist predicted the outcome of the 2016 election in the United States.

“Could it happen? Absolutely. But it would be a very, very big upset—about as likely as, say, the Chicago Cubs baseball team coming back from a three-games-to-one deficit to win their first World Series since 1908. So yeah, Hillary’s got this. Democrats, just ask a Cleveland Indians fan whether you have anything to worry about.”

We all know what happened at the end. Clinton lost and Trump won. The Economist misled them and billions across the world. Coming back home for a bit. In December 2018, The Economist predicted that incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari will win a second term in office and that the opposition will collapse.

The Economist in its edition, “The World in 2019”, the magazine said: “The president, Muhammadu Buhari, will win re-election in February, as the new opposition coalition may collapse before the vote.

Just to state categorically, the quote from The Economist claimed two things. One is that President Buhari will be re-elected and that the opposition will collapse before the elections. One thing is clear, President Buhari is clear favourites to win if the campaign rallies across the country are anything to go by.

President Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo have embarked on a more proactive and people-oriented campaigns than any other party in Nigerian democratic history. The mammoth crowds at the rallies are also a confirmation that the presidential duo is loved.

Fast forward to February 2019, barely two weeks before the presidential election in Nigeria, the supposedly reputed magazine did a U-turn and claimed that the main opposition party will win.

Please stop for a minute and take a deep breath, do you expect the truth from a man who speaks from both sides of his mouth?

Little wonder, economic historian and professor of Economics, Bradford DeLong wrote this about The Economist, “As a longtime reader of The Economist, let me just say that in the past six years I have come to the conclusion that in five important issue areas--U.S. politics, U.S. economics, finance (U.S. and global), Middle Eastern politics, and African politics — anything The Economist states that I did not already know is likely to be wrong... And it's the reason I pay much more attention these days to the Financial Times.”

In all fairness, there is nothing left of The Economist’s credibility when it comes to political calculations and predictions. Hopefully, The Economist will have the decency to apologise to Nigerians after the elections on 16 February.

Akinloye is President of Initiative to Save Democracy. He is a social commentator and political analyst

All the international media are aware of Buhari's shameless plan to rig the Nigerian electiona and continue illegitimately in office. Everyone knows nothing will stop Buhari from trying to rig himself into power. That is why there will be serous crisis ahead for Nigeria.

See Foreign Policy publication of today below:

.:

Nigeria’s President Isn’t a Democrat. He’s a Liar.


As Nigerians gear up to choose their president on Feb. 16, there is good reason to fear a return to military-style dictatorship. Following incumbent Muhammadu Buhari’s extraconstitutional suspension in January of Nigeria’s chief judge, who heads the Supreme Court that has final say in election disputes, the main opposition candidate, Atiku Abubakar, requested U.S. and EU intervention for the “survival of Nigeria’s democracy.”

This is more than idle rhetoric. Buhari, an ex-general who led a short-lived military junta in the 1980s, was elected president in 2015 by Nigerians who (like this writer) accepted his claims to be a “reformed democrat.” However, his four years in office have highlighted the difference between accepting the principle of elective government and being a true democrat. In Nigeria, like elsewhere in today’s world, the biggest threat to democracy comes not from generals instigating coups but from authoritarians-at-heart winning elections, only to use their democratic mandate to rule anti-democratically.

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Half of Nigeria’s 59-year post-colonial history has been spent under various military dictatorships, but this year marks the 20th anniversary of the return to democratic rule. While the country has seen its fair share of ups and downs during this period, some tangible progress has been made in the spheres of freedom of expression, judicial independence, rule of law, and general civil liberties—and certainly in comparison with the military era.

In the past four years, however, Buhari’s government has serially ignored court orders, harassed and arrested journalists and activists, deployed security services to intimidate political opponents, and unforgivably sanctioned the killings of hundreds of unarmed civilians on multiple occasions with the impunity of a power-drunk dictatorship. Yes, security services have been known to overreact even in advanced democracies, and civilians sometimes get hurt in the process. But what distinguishes governments committed to upholding fundamental human rights—such as the right to not be killed while demonstrating peacefully—are the post-incident actions they undertake to ensure such tragedies never repeat themselves. No such luck with the Buhari government.

Following the recent army killing of unarmed protesters in October 2018, rather than express remorse, Nigeria’s army brass falsely claimed that demonstrators had attacked soldiers who simply did what President Donald Trump told U.S. soldiers to do in the same situation: start shooting. Such callous impunity can only thrive in an army confident that its commander in chief will indulge such excesses. Buhari is, by any reasonable standard, personally responsible for the killings of unarmed civilians going unpunished under his watch.

In addition to all this, opposition figures such as former President Olusegun Obasanjo are warning that Buhari’s ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) party is readying to rig the Feb. 16 elections, an allegation lent credence by the irregularities and violence involved in a recent gubernatorial poll that the APC was determined to win at all costs. In perhaps the Freudian slip of the year, commenting on the gubernatorial election, ruling party chairman Adams Oshiomhole said: “I think that for democracy to flourish, only people who can accept the pain of rigging—sorry, defeat—should participate in an election.”

The international community is thus right to raise concerns about whether the upcoming election will be free and fair. On Feb. 16, Nigerians will be choosing not only their president but also their national assembly. Taking into consideration Buhari’s dismissive behavior towards the judiciary, a potentially rigged clean sweep of the executive and legislative arms of government by himself and his party could usher in an era of dangerously centralized power imperiling Nigeria’s modest democratic gains since the end of military rule in 1999. As of today, there are no credible polls indicating who might win the presidential election, and it is probably a toss-up.

The fact that Buhari still retains significant support among Nigerians despite his anti-democratic behavior requires explanation. One major reason is that Nigeria’s top political actors are all so morally compromised that an appeal by any of them to higher principles can always be persuasively dismissed by their opponents as hypocritical nonsense.

For instance, Atiku, Buhari’s main rival who accuses him of weakening democracy, has faced numerous allegations of corruption since serving as Nigeria’s vice president from 1999 to 2007. Additionally, the government that Atiku was a prominent member of itself oversaw massive election rigging and deployed widespread violence to stay in power. Meanwhile, Obasanjo, who is now accusing Buhari of wanting to rig the February election, was president at the time and once exhorted his party members to treat an upcoming election as a “do-or-die affair.”

Walter Onnoghen, the chief judge whom Buhari suspended, is claiming unconvincingly that it was due to “forgetfulness” that he did not disclose several sizable foreign currency accounts in his asset declaration. Moreover, prior to his suspension, he used his position to obstruct investigations into the matter. Corruption runs deep in the highest echelons of Nigeria’s judiciary. Many regular citizens thus feel scant sympathy for judges being muscled by the executive. They’re seen as part and parcel of the country’s corrupt elite, certainly no friends of the ordinary man.

Source: https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/02/04/nigerias-president-isnt-a-democrat-hes-a-liar/

go do your own poll �
stop countering others Mr zombie bmc....

Economist articles are written by anonymous individuals and not agreed by an editorial board like other regular "print medias".

This explains why a lot of PDP fans believe Tolu Ogunlesi (who is highly suspected to be a columnist there) wrote the article that called ex-President Jonathan an "ineffective button"

phelonrays:
go do your own poll �

stop countering others Mr zombie bmc....

I was wondering why our own NBS will not do our own poll.

Abi they can't publish the result if it doesn't favor the government that funds them?