Researchers, Fact-checkers Fault Presidential Opinion Polls

Independent analysis by Economic Confidential and its team of fact check Researchers have questioned opinion polls that ascribe different results to the various presidential candidates.

Economic Confidential fact check Researchers say the criteria employed in arriving opinion polls results which projected Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP), Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Atiku Abubakar of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were faulty and subjective.

Researchers say there is the fear that some gullible people may see the polls as the ultimate result even before the first ballots are cast in a presentation that was made on Sunday in Abuja.

The magazine’s managing editor Abdulrahman Abdulraheem and head of fact-check, Mohammed Dahiru Lawal analysed the polls by Nextier, ANAP Foundation, Premise Data (for Bloomberg), Stears Business, Nigerian Human Rights Community (NHRC), June Group Research and CASA.

“While some of the polls are defective in methodology, their promoters are obviously partisan which further create doubts on objectivity, fairness and credibility of the polls. Similarly, some of the pollsters strangely share the same identity from their digital footprints,” the team said.

Some of the pollsters had never conducted a poll before and lack the tested predictive validity from any previous experience.

The team noted that unlike what one of the pollsters claimed, no presidential election in the history of Nigeria has ever been decided by a runoff.

“As we observed in the PRNigeria report, the rash of unscientific opinion polls and partisan projections have heightened public anxiety and influence extreme optimism among candidates and their supporters, which could undermine national security.

In its recommendations for scientific, credible poll, Pollsters should deploy scientific tools and not partisan instruments for political campaigns in promoting preferred candidates.

Polls, it noted, should contain standard verifiable indices and parameters including the sample size, the representativeness, geographical spread, age distribution, occupations of respondents, types of the questionnaire, the questions and the margin of error allowed in the final computations.

It counselled stakeholders including the politicians, the media and electorates to eschew divisive contents, fake news and hate speech by promoting tolerance and peaceful coexistence for national stability

“No election is a do or die affair. Anyone who fails to win in the forthcoming election, may win the subsequent ones. And anyone who wins this must be magnanimous in victory and work towards uniting a deeply polarised nation,” Economic Confidential said in a commentary on the election polls.