.png)
Insights on Nigeria's 2023 Presidential Elections
Updated: Jun 23, 2022
The conversation on politics gets a lot of attention in the world and Nigeria is no exception. Sometimes, while conversing about politics, emotions get high, voices get louder as if lives depend on our ability to be the loudest in the room.
In the heat of the moment, you can literally feel the passion, and that is because we are (to a large extent) defined by policies and structures in the country we live in and the world at large.
The theatrics of the 2023 Nigerian Presidential election has intensified and a lot of people have already selected their preferred presidential aspirant based on several factors. Who is the preferred presidential aspirant across different regions in Nigeria?
What is the public's prediction on who the next ruling party will be? Does tribe influence a voter’s decision on who to vote for? This article will cover answers to these questions in subsequent paragraphs.
There are 18 (eighteen) registered political parties in Nigeria; The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressive Congress (APC) currently occupy the biggest National Assembly seats. The former, established in 1998, was until 7 years ago, the ruling party in Nigeria before it was overturned by the latter in 2015.
As the elections draw closer, there are several fake reports and speculations about who will be the next President of Nigeria. Several situations have made headline news, from the cost of acquiring a nomination form from the ruling party to conversations about who the flagbearer across parties will be. We also experienced meme-worthy moments during the just concluded primaries where a lot of aspirants stepped down for the current flag bearer of the ruling party.
To understand what Nigerians are saying and ‘not saying’ about the forthcoming elections, we deployed a survey to 50,000 of our online community (Lumi) across all regions in Nigeria. See an analysis of respondents below:
Age Group: 45% of respondents are between the ages of 16-25, 40% are between the ages of 26-37, 8% of respondents are aged between 38 - 45, and 8% are over 45.
Regional Distribution: 49% of respondents live in the West, 38% of respondents live in the North, 8% of respondents live in the South while 5% of respondents live in the East.
Registered and non-registered voters: 73% of respondents are registered voters while 27% are non-registered voters.
A total of six (6) questions were deployed to respondents through the Insiight research tool, five (5) questions were close- ended while one (1) question was open-ended. See an analysis of the survey results below:
The first question, phrased as ‘What political party do you belong to?’ was asked because people have strong affiliations to political parties in Nigeria. From registering as a member to wearing different party outfits, or use of items that are symbolic to the party (The local sweeping broom is symbolic to APC while the Umbrella is symbolic to PDP).
35% of respondents selected APC as their preferred political party while 32% of respondents selected PDP and 22% of respondents selected LP.
When analyzed further by the major tribe of respondents:
Igbos: 42% selected LP, 35% selected PDP and 14% selected APC.
Yorubas: 44% selected APC, 20% selected LP while 25% selected PDP.
Hausas: 39% selected PDP, 36% APC, 9%, LP and 8% NNPP
The insights imply that a majority of Igbos support the Labour Party, a majority of Yorubas support APC while a majority of Hausas support PDP.
The second question, phrased as ‘Who is your preferred presidential aspirant?' was asked to understand if people preferred a presidential aspirant that is not a flagbearer of their preferred political party.
46% of respondents selected Peter Obi as their preferred presidential aspirant, 21% selected Tinubu, 19% selected Atiku Abubakar while 14% selected others
When analyzed further by the major tribe of respondents:
Igbos: 82% selected Peter Obi, 2% selected Tinubu and 9% selected Atiku and 8% selected others.
Yorubas: 49% selected Peter Obi, 29% selected Tinubu, 7% selected Atiku and 16% selected others.
Hausas: 42% selected Atiku Abubakar, 23% Tinubu, 20% Peter Obi while 15% selected others.
The third question, phrased as ‘Why is your selection in question 2 your preferred presidential Aspirant?' Was asked to understand why people prefer a candidate over other candidates; this question was left open-ended so as not to influence the decision of respondents.
The majority of respondents that selected Tinubu highlighted his experience and achievement. For Peter Obi, respondents highlighted the fact that he is a good leader, his agility and their faith in his ability to make a difference. For Atiku Abubakar, respondents highlighted the fact that they have lost faith in APC and that Atiku is a man of integrity, understands the economy and is a man of his word.
The fourth question, phrased as ‘What do you look out for when voting for a candidate?' was asked to understand what metrics guide people in their selection of a presidential aspirant.
34% selected the candidate’s personality as an attribute they look out for, 33% selected the electoral agenda of the candidate, 23% selected the candidate’s ruling history while 10% selected the candidate's speech, General News propaganda, the preferred option of friends, family and the opinion of Social Media.
When analyzed further by the major tribe of respondents:
Igbos: 37% selected the candidate’s personality and 28% chose the candidate’s electoral agenda while 25% selected the candidate’s ruling history.
Yorubas: 32% of Yorubas selected the candidate's electoral Agenda, 35% picked the candidate's personality while 21% selected the candidate's ruling history.
Hausas: 39% of Hausas selected the candidate’s electoral agenda, 28% selected the candidate’s personality while 22% selected the candidate’s ruling history.
The insights imply that Igbos are more influenced by the candidate’s personality; Yorubas and Hausas are more influenced by the candidate’s electoral agenda. This selection may be as a result of their current preferred presidential candidate and should not be used as a general selection criteria as their decision may change if they are presented with a different set of candidates.
The fifth question, phrased as ‘Does tribalism play a role in your support for a presidential candidate?’ was asked to understand the extent to which people support a candidate based on tribe.
73% of people who took the survey said No, while 27% admitted to being influenced by Tribe.
When analyzed further by the 3 major tribes, the results were even more interesting:
Igbos: 77% said no and 23% said yes
Yorubas: 74% said no and 26% said yes.
Hausas: 68% said No and 32% said yes
The insights imply that among those who took the survey, people belonging to the Hausa tribe are more likely to be influenced by Tribe, followed by Yorubas and Igbos.
The sixth question phrased as ‘Predict the party that will win the next presidential election’ was deployed to all respondents.
41% of respondents surveyed predicted APC while 32% predicted PDP and 23% predicted Labour Party.
When analyzed further by the major tribe of respondents:
Igbos: 40% predicted the Labour party, 32% predicted PDP, and 24% predicted APC.
Yorubas: 55% predicted APC, 23% predicted PDP while 17% predicted Labour Party.
Hausas: 46% predicted PDP, 34% predicted APC and 10% predicted Labour Party.
The insights imply that although a majority of respondents (across all ethnic tribes) selected Peter Obi of the Labour Party as their preferred presidential candidate, it can be deduced that not a lot of these respondents have faith in his ability to win the election as more respondents selected the current ruling party when asked to predict a party that will win the next presidential election.
You can equally uncover in-depth political analysis and discover what percentage of Nigerians are registered voters. That’s not all, You can deploy and include advanced targeting such as deploying surveys to only registered voters or non-registered voters.
Discover more with Insiight. Start now by clicking on this link to create a free account.
