Tinubu’s campaign rejects NOI poll, says results “dubious”

The All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council has reacted to the recent poll conducted by the NOI polls which placed Peter Obi of the Labour Party ahead in the presidential race.

The poll, commissioned by ANAP Foundation, was conducted this month and suggests a three-horse presidential race between Mr Obi, Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The NOI poll gave Mr Obi a 21 per cent chance of winning the 2023 presidential election if it were to be conducted today; while Messrs Tinubu and Atiku are both tied in second place at 13 per cent.

However, in a statement released by Bayo Onanuga, one of the spokespersons of the APC campaign council on Thursday, the campaign team rejected the outcome of the poll.

Mr Onanuga said the poll made “wild and incredible permutations on the presidential elections.”

Furthermore, Mr Onanuga questioned the statistical methodology of the poll and accuracy of past polls by NOI.

He stated that the council is “unperturbed by these dubious and unreliable statistics because our research shows that NOI Polls have been off the mark at critical election periods in recent times.

“For example, preparatory to the March 2015 presidential elections, NOI published in October 2014 the results of a “Viability Poll” which used the concepts of Familiarity and Net Favourability Position to survey.

“In the results, NOI claimed that President Goodluck Jonathan has the best overall familiarity rating at 99% and Net Favourability Probability of ±25.

“By contrast, NOI dismissed the then All Progressives Congress candidate, Muhammadu Buhari as a “borderline candidate” who needed ” huge public relations” to shore up his performance,” he said.

In addition, Mr Onanuga accused the organisation behind the poll as “anti-APC”, noting that the owner of the platform has an ulterior motive for the poll.

According to Mr Onanuga, the poll deployed fake statistics to arrive at the outcome.

“Our objective profiling of NOI Polls as an anti-APC research organisation is grounded on the aforesaid facts and that is why we believe this present report is, in the language of Nigerians, “wuruwuru to the answer”.

“The NOI has chosen the preferred candidate and has decided to use fake, dubious statistics to package him to the Nigerian voters.

“We know as a matter of fact, the owners of NOI and where their political interest lies and wish to advise NOI to stop polluting the political system with irresponsible, unscientific and biased polling so that we don’t expose the puppeteers pulling its strings,” Mr Onanuga said.