Atiku defeats Buhari in online poll as experts’ say it doesn’t work in Nigeria
Just as a number of online polls have emerged showing that former Vice President and leading presidential hopeful of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, has dislodged President Muhammadu Buhari, experts in digital polling have faulted the result, saying majority of the people that voted are elites who usually do not vote during general elections.
According to experts, many of the respondents that voted in the online polling platforms, find it hard to come out and vote during real elections in Nigeria, rather they prefer to remain indoors to monitor how others are voting as presented by the conventional media.
The latest online polls result conducted by pro-Buhari platform also joined the bandwagon that believes that Atiku Abubakar remains the man to beat come 2019 elections.
According to the polls conducted by Mark Essien via his Twitter handle @markessien, Atiku polled 43 per cent while Buhari trailed him with 35 per cent.
In the second poll conducted by @YNaija, Atiku got 70 per cent as against Buhari’s 19 per cent. The other participants in the poll, Prof. Kingsley Moghalu and Mr. Fela Durotoye polled 6 per cent and 5 per cent respectively. (See link https://twitter.com/YNaija/status/1001584089525256192)
The poll, which commenced May 29 and ended 11:00 p.m., June 1, asked respondents: “Which of them will have your vote, if you had to vote today?”
At the end of the voting, of 7,444 respondents, seven out of every 10 respondents representing about 5,210 settled for Atiku compared to Buhari’s 1,414; Moghalu’s 446 and Durotoye’s 372.
Observers say such polls can mean a lot in developed countries because majority of them undergo electronic voting unlike in Nigeria where the election umpire had consistently made it clear that Nigeria is not yet ripe for e-voting even though it can currently manage electronic accreditation.
