The Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo has been seen as the preferred aspirant to take over from President Muhammadu Buhari following a presidential survey that was carried out by the Intellectual Forum on Politics and Governance.
Nigerians choose Osinbajo over former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, the National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, Bola Tinubu and former Governor of Kano State, Rabiu Kwankwaso.
The 2023 race has seen the likes of former governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi, River State Governor, Nyesom Wike, former Senate President, Bukola Saraki, Senator representing Imo West, Rochas Okorocha; Minister of State for Education, Emeka Nwajiuba; Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello, Chief Whip of the Senate, Senator Orji Kalu and several others express their intention to take over from President Buhari.
According to IFP&G, “Analysis of the results clearly indicated that Vice President Yemi Osinbajo was the citizens’ choice as the next President of Nigeria.”
The Deputy Chairman, Prof Nasiru Yauri, Organising Secretary, Prof. Yahaya Baba; and Member, South East, Prof Ike E. Ogba revealed this in a statement jointly signed.
IFP&G had done random selection of 12,000 names from the database of registered voters spread across all the geopolitical zones to vote in the poll.
Osinbajo in the poll was chosen as the favourite with 42.50 per cent, while former Vice President, Atiku had 25.51.
Former Governor of Kano State, Kwankwaso came third with 18.07 per cent while the National Leader of the APC, Tinubu had 13.92 per cent.
The group stated, “It can be argued that if Bola Tinubu was not one of the selected candidates in this survey, the likelihood is that Prof Yemi Osinbajo would have picked up most of the votes, that is the 13.92 per cent who voted for Bola Tinubu, taking him well over the 50% mark which is enough to win any election going by past record of elections in Nigeria.
“Prof Yemi Osinbajo was clearly the preferred candidate for both males and females nationally, with 41.29 per cent of males selecting him as their choice and 46.38 per cent of females selecting him. This can be compared with 15.16 per cent of the male gender selecting Bola Tinubu and 9.95% of the female gender selecting Bola Tinubu as their preferred candidate for president.”
Meanwhile, the National Chairman, Southwest Agenda for Tinubu 2023 Presidential Ambition, Dayo Adeyeye has questioned the credibility of the group behind the survey.
He said, “I have never heard about the group and I don’t know about their track record and experience in terms of carrying out survey of this nature. So, I will not consider their survey nor will I bother about it.
“I want you to go back and check a lot of election surveys in the past and juxtapose them with the ultimate outcome of the elections, you will see a huge disparity between them.
“This particular group, I don’t know who they are. Nigeria is such a country where some people will wake up one day, find a bogus name for themselves and claim to have conducted surveys that nobody can verify.”
This article was originally published on Nigeria News