Williams and Associates, the United States-based polling firm that predicted victory for Muhammadu Buhari in 2015 has predicted victory for Atiku Abubakar in the forthcoming presidential polls.
The company was initially hired by the Goodluck Jonathan administration ahead of the 2015 presidential election.
The company in its analysis of the Nigerian presidential election said that Atiku will win with less than a majority of the votes cast with 45% while Buhari will take 33% of the votes.
The polling sample produced Kingsley Moghalu, the candidate of the Young Peoples Party, YPP with 9% of the votes, Omoyele Sowore of the African Action Congress, AAC, with 8% of the votes.
The same company which when it was hired by the Jonathan administration had predicted victory for Buhari with 54% to 46% for Jonathan. Buhari eventually beat Jonathan by 54% to 45% of the total votes cast.
In its analysis working with data collected across Nigeria by operatives of Williams and Associates through interviews, face-to-face interviews and using multi-stage stratification proportionate to the population sample responders were interviewed on their preferences in English and local dialects as appropriate.
The poll also reported that South-East with 76% had the greatest proportion of Nigerians who believe that things are going in the wrong direction. Only 12% of those in the region believed that things were going in the right direction.
The South-East was followed by the South-South with 70%, the North-East with 65%, North-West with 57%, South-West 48%.
Remarkably, the troubled North-Central with 46% had the least proportion of those who believe that things were wrong.
Two weeks to the election, 64% of the sample responded that President Buhari had not done enough to deserve re-election that was compared to 52% which in the same time in 2015 that believed that Dr. Jonathan had not done enough to deserve re-election.
Across geopolitical zones, Buhari’s crave for a second term is highest in the North-East, with 48% of the population rooting for his re-election and 55% against.
The North-East is followed by the North-West with 41%, the South-South with 36%, South-West with 30%, South-East 29% and North-Central with 29%.
The outcome of the polls is bound to raise debate among political actors given that the PDP candidate, Atiku Abubakar commissioned the poll, a fact that was revealed by the company which listed Dr. Jonathan as its client in 2015.
