Hottestgistnaija.com
The Association of Nigeria News Poll, this week, released the result of its poll in Oyo State. The independent news poll, which margin of error for the survey is plus or minus four percentage points, asserts that about 45 per cent of eligible voters feel they have little or nothing in common with either the incumbent Governor, Mr. Abiola Ajimobi (APC), Mr. Adebayo Akala (Labour Party) and Mr. Seyi Makinde in the April 11th, 2015 gubernatorial election, stating in no uncertain terms their clear preference for the candidate of the People’s Democratic Party, Senator Teslim Folarin. The poll was conducted among a random state wide sample of 9,600 adults across the three Senatorial districts with the PDP getting 39% to come first; the Accord Party got 31%; Labour Party got 13%, the APC got 10 percent while the Social Democratic Party, SDP, got fseven per cent.
In a statement released by Mr. Wale Osun, the Head Research of the Association, while announcing the results, he said that for the purpose of the opinion poll, 9,600 questionnaires were randomly administered to respondents who had attained the 18-year voting age and had collected their Permanent Voter’s Card. “We were able to process 3,400 questionnaires in Oyo North; 4,000 questionnaires in Oyo Central, and 1,600 questionnaires in Oyo South, and the choices were among the All People Congress (APC) candidate, Mr. Abiola Ajimobi, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Sen. Teslim Folarin, the Labour Party candidate, Adebayo Akala, the Social Democratic Party, SDP’s Seyi Makinde and Accord Party’s Sen. Raheed Ladoja.”
He continued, “The analysis of the responses as to whom the respondents would likely vote for on Saturday April 11, showed that the candidate of the PDP, Sen Folarin, was the most preferred in all the three Senatorial Districts with as much as 39% of the respondents preferring him.”
Mr. Osun stated further, “In Oyo North, out of the 3,400 respondents, 1,900 respondents sampled indicated preference for the PDP candidate , 970 respondents indicated preference for the Accord candidate while 268 respondents indicated preference for the Labour Party while 172 and 90 respondents settled for the APC and SDP candidates respectively.
“And out of the 4,000 respondents in Oyo Central, the Peoples’ Democratic Party candidate was preferred by 1,730. 1,510 respondents indicated their preference for the Accord Party candidate while 616 respondents indicated preference for the LABOUR candidate and 144 went for the APC. The SDP candidate got 50 nods,” Osun stated.
He said further, “In OYO South where 1,600 respondents were sampled, 900 indicated their preference for the PDP candidate while 501respondents indicated preference for the Accord candidate, and 110 respondents indicated preference for the APC candidate. For the SDP, it was 86.”
He said that the analysis of the responses, especially where they were asked the reason(s) for their preferences, showed that the performance of Sen. Folarin as Senate Leader, his youthfulness and seamless connection with the elite and grassroots, youths and market women put him in pole position for the governorship seat. More so, some of the respondents said while Akala, Ladoja and Ajimobi have once occupied the seat and did their best, they were ready to swim and sink with Folarin because of the novel ideas he has shared with them on how he would reposition and rejuvenate the state. For Makinde, majority of the respondents expressed their reservations with him because of his seeming desperation to occupy the seat and his obvious lack of political experience. “Some of the respondents said Oyo State is too delicate to be handed over to a political neophyte,” Osun said.
In view of the postponement, Osun stated that two more polls would be conducted mid-March and a week to the elections to gauge the pulse of the people again.
