The NOI poll, commissioned by the Anap Foundation and
released on Thursday, showed that the former Anambra
governor is leading the race with 21 percent of the votes.
It described the presidential contest as a three-horse race
and gave Obi an eight percent lead over the All Progressives Congress (APC)’s candidate Bola Tinubu and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s Atiku Abubakar who each got 13 percent of the votes to end up as joint second in the poll.

The presidential candidate of the Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) Rabiu Kwankwaso was fourth with three percent of the votes.

But the APC, PDP, and NNPP have in separate reactions to
the poll, dismissed it, saying it does not reflect the realities
on the ground.


Bots, Not Real Humans

The PDP emblem.
During his appearance on Channels Television’s Politics
Today on Thursday, the spokesperson of the Atiku
Abubakar presidential campaign Daniel Bwala, questioned
the techniques deployed for the exercise, claiming Obi is
basking in the euphoria of hallucination.

Bwala argued that a “normal poll that will attract
credibility will be a poll that will clearly release the sample
size and the margin of error as the report is being released
because the sample size and the margin of error will help
in identifying whether the polling was actually carried out
correctly or not.

“Then, you can further ask for the sampling. Was it done
through a phone call? If it was done through a phone call,
then the people who did not have phones were probably
not part of the polling.

“You also go to the extent of demographics and the place
where the polling was carried out. I know they said it was
a random sampling. But then, because of the result, I’m
tempted to believe that this polling was carried out online
because Peter Obi has a number of people who are very
active for him online much more than the other
candidates.

“I will tell you why: There was an algorithm search and
data analytics that was carried out that came up with the
finding that 57.5 percent of people who follow Peter Obi
and engage with him on social media do not live in
Nigeria. In fact, majority of whom are bots on Twitter —
they are not real human beings.”

He said: “If you take away 57.5 percent of people who are
active for him, who probably live abroad and they don’t
have voter cards and they are likely not to come to vote,
what it means is that Peter Obi is basking in the euphoria
of hallucination, and this polling is a true reflection.”



‘Biased Polling’

Senator Kashim Shettima was officially presented as
the APC vice-presidential candidate in Abuja on July
20, 2022.

For the APC, the most recent Anap poll is not a reflection
of the Nigerian reality as it accused the organisers of using
“dubious” statistics to “package” Obi to voters.

The statement by the Director, Media, and Publicity of the
APC Presidential Campaign Council Bayo Onanuga
accused the NOI of turning its “political bias in an election
period to fraudulent statistics”.

“The NOI has chosen the preferred candidate and has
decided to use fake, dubious statistics to package him to
the Nigerian voters,” Onanuga said in the statement.

“We know, as a matter of fact, the owners of NOI and
where their political interest lies and wish to advise NOI to
stop polluting the political system with irresponsible,
unscientific, and biased polling so that we don’t expose
the puppeteers pulling its strings.”


‘We are not Hurt’

Dr Abdulmumin Jibrin.
Aside from the APC, the NNPP also claimed that it is not
disturbed by the poll, saying several similar exercises from
the same organisation have failed in their projections.

“We are not hurt in any way. Absolutely, we are not hurt.
In fact, I was contemplating not coming to this programme
because coming here means we have made the people
who promoted the poll achieve what they want to
achieve,” the spokesperson of the NNPP Abdulmumin
Jibrin said on Politics Today . “All they want to do is to
create a public conversation so that we continue to talk
about it; creating the image as if Obi is very much ahead.”

Jibrin accused Obi and the Labour Party of dividing the
country, saying the former governor will only get votes in
the southeast where he hails from.

“The only place Obi will demystify structure is in the
southeastern part of the country. That is where whether he
has a structure or no structure, he will make an impression
because their party and its candidate are divisive
elements. All they do is to divide Nigerians,” he
maintained.


However, the LP says the poll shows Nigerians are ready
for a new order of governance.

“It shows that Nigerians have come to terms with our
reality that there has to be a change and a new order from
the old because it is very obvious they are languishing in
abject poverty,” the party’s spokesman Abayomi Arabambi
said.

“There are no jobs for Nigerians. Schools are under lock
and key due to executive rascality and malfeasance of the
present administration.”

https://www.thecable.ng/apc-pdp-nnpp-kick-as-anap-poll-places-obi-first-in-presidential-race/amp

Ok

But the message is clear. No longer vu aa usual. Obedient Movement has taken over the centre stage.