Summary of Results: We earlier reported on the outcome of a comprehensive electoral survey on the Nigerian presidential elections initially slated for February 14th. The elections were then subsequently postponed for a 6 week period, and rescheduled for March 28th, 2015. Given the significant political events that have transpired since the release of our last survey results, we recognized that there was a strong possibility that voter preferences could have shifted in the intervening period. We therefore conducted a new survey that was intended to understand whether there had been any shifts in the presidential preferences of Nigerians within the intervening period.
The new survey was conducted from March 14th to March 25th. The Survey Platform utilized was Survey MonkeyTM. A detailed overview of the survey methodology is described at the end of this paper. The survey questionnaire comprised of 42 questions covering the following topics: (a) demographic questions covering gender, educational attainment, income, region of origin, place of domicile and location at which voter’s registration was done (b) 2011 electoral choices (c) 2015 voting intent (d) respondents’ political views and (e) motivating factors for the choice of Presidential candidate.
As with our earlier survey analysis, we reiterate that a critical challenge that an online-based poll offers is the possibility that results can be skewed due to an over-representation of respondents from certain regions in the sample population. This potential bias can be controlled for, by analyzing the results on a regional basis using the regions where respondents registered for their voter cards as the filter.
Given that the detailed 42 item survey allowed us to establish the region in which respondents registered to vote, and by extension where they would be voting, it was possible to develop a detailed profile of voting behavior by region. This enabled us to develop insights into the likely scenarios that will evolve by region, allowing us to ensure that a high response in certain parts of the country did not unduly skew the predicted outcomes. Our ability to evaluate voter behavior on a regional basis also allowed the determination of the potential impact that low voter turnout or outright vote cancellation in the North Eastern part of the country might have on electoral outcomes. All analyses relevant to the elections were carried out only with respondents that were domiciled in Nigeria, have voter cards and indicated that they would be voting in the 2015 elections. The different sample sizes of respondents from the various regions implied that the associated confidence interval for the various regions were different.
Projected Outcomes
The survey emphatically confirmed that Muhammadu Buhari is on track to win the 2015 Presidential elections with about 32.3 million total votes (see Figure 1), while Goodluck Jonathan will obtain about 7.7 million votes. The combined tally for the two candidates will average about 40 million votes. We have maintained our assumption that the voter turnout will be about 58.1%, which is the average of the voter turnout percentages obtained in the last 4 elections held in the 4th republic (53.7% in 2011, 57.5% in 2007, 69.1% in 2003 and 52.3% in 1999).
Based on the survey results, we predict that Goodluck Jonathan is unlikely to win outright in any geo-political zone. While we reported in our last survey that Jonathan would win the South East (65%) and South South (71%) geo-political zones, the new survey results indicate that he will likely lose to Buhari in the two regions winning only about 42% of the votes in the South East and 38% in his own region, the South South. We project that Muhammadu Buhari is on track to win in the North East (83% of the votes, confidence interval 95±12%), North West (95% of the votes, confidence interval 95±8%), North Central (82% of the votes, confidence interval 95±6%), South West (86% of the votes, confidence interval 95±5%), South East (58% of the votes, confidence interval 95±15%) and South South (62% of the votes, confidence interval 95±9%).
Given the significant margins of victory that the analysis projected for Buhari, we were concerned that the sample population might have been skewed towards Buhari supporters. Although this was highly unlikely given that the respondents were randomly solicited from all over Nigeria, we decided to undertake two further tests on the sample population. Firstly, we reviewed the proportion of respondents who indicated that they had voted for Jonathan and Buhari in the 2011 elections, and compared the voter percentages to the reported INEC figures for the outcome of the 2011 elections. 55% of the respondents in this current survey indicated that they had voted for Goodluck Jonathan in the 2011 elections. This is slightly lower than the official INEC voter count from the 2011 elections, which indicated that Jonathan won that race with 61% of the popular vote. 45% of the respondents indicated that they had voted for Buhari in the 2011 elections, versus 33% from the official INEC figures. These results indicated that majority of our respondents had voted for Jonathan in 2011. What this also means in essence is that a survey of this nature would have accurately predicted the outcome of the 2011 presidential race.
Secondly, we also reviewed the voting choices of Jonathan’s 2011 supporters across all regions to understand how their choices in 2015 were impacting the presidential race. Only 34% of respondents who had voted for Jonathan in 2011 indicated that they will be voting for him again in 2015, while the remaining 66% indicated they would be voting for Buhari in the 2015 elections. If 66% of the 22,495,187 (14,846,823) are added to the 12,214,853 votes that Buhari obtained in 2011, the potential Buhari votes would be about 27 million before bringing to the table the 2.1 million votes for Nuhu Ribadu that are now at play, and the slightly higher voter turnout that is expected in 2015. These triangulations enabled a clear picture to begin to emerge on how Buhari could plausibly win the 2015 elections by significant margins.
While a lot of progress has been made in tackling the Boko Haram crisis in the last 5 weeks, we still proceeded to evaluate what the electoral outcomes would be if the lingering Boko Haram crisis in the North East prevented elections from holding in the states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe (the BAY States). Our analysis suggests that the complete exclusion of the BAY states from the electoral tally will still result in a victory for Muhammadu Buhari. In the event that voting will not be able to hold in the BAY states, the total expected votes from the North East will reduce from about 5.3 million to 2.6 million votes and the projected national tally will be 30.1 million votes for Muhammadu Buhari versus about 7.2 million votes for Goodluck Jonathan. In either scenario, Buhari will likely win the presidential elections with a convincing majority of the total votes cast.
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