Labour Party’s Peter Obi Emerges as Unexpected Favorite in Nigeria’s Presidential Elections
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A businessman who later became governor of Nigeria’s Anambra State, Peter Obi has captivated millions of Nigerians fed up with present politics.A new poll shows Labour Party candidate Peter Obi enjoys the support of a clear majority of Nigeria’s voting population.Although Nigeria’s presidential election is still five months away, 72% of Nigerians said they would vote for Obi if the election was tomorrow, according to a poll conducted by Premise Data Corp. and published on Wednesday.The same poll showed that Bola Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) had the support of just 16% of decided voters, and Atiku Abubakar of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had the support of just 9% of decided voters. The poll was conducted between September 5-20 and surveyed 3,973 Nigerians.The news comes a week after another poll by NOI Polls Limited showed the election season was a “three-horse race” between Obi, Tinubu, and Abubakar. That poll also showed Obi in the lead, albeit just barely, and that he commands massive support in the country’s south and southeast. However, in that poll, the number of undecided voters was substantially larger than any candidate’s support.A third poll published on Tuesday by the We2Geda Foundation found Obi enjoyed 51% support among the 15,438 Nigerians surveyed.The results are shocking, given the dominance of Nigerian politics by the APC and the miniscule presence of Labour, which has just one seat in the Nigerian Senate and two in the House of Representatives.His supporters, who have adopted an English-language pun -”OBIdients” – as their moniker, largely come from the country’s youth and from women, who report themselves as dissatisfied with the traditional ANC and PDP parties and believe that a more radical change is required in the country.The Wednesday Premise poll showed that three-quarters of Nigerians say the country is “headed in the wrong direction,” with 41% of respondents saying jobs and the economy are their biggest concerns.With 218 million people, Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa, and also has its largest economy. Until earlier this month, Nigeria was also the largest oil exporter in Africa, accounting for 86% of its total exports and 10% of its gross domestic product. However, thanks to massive oil theft and corruption, Nigeria’s oil output hit a 32-year-low last month, and Angola climbed to the top spot as Africa’s oil exporter.The petroleum crisis is just one of Nigeria’s many challenges, as the country suffered a major collapse of its electrical grid earlier this week amid ongoing floods of the Niger and Benue rivers that have killed more than 300 people this year and devastated farmland. Worldwide inflation has not spared Nigeria, with recent World Bank data showing the country saw its currency depreciate by 20.6% over the past year.Obi tweeted on Wednesday that “For us, power remains a top priority. Under my watch, national grid collapse will become a matter of history and a reference point for erstwhile administrations.”“Effective power generation, transmission and distribution remain a national security issue,” he wrote. “This also places power in the front burner of campaign and policy. Painfully, this latest episode is the 7th national grid collapse in 2022. As part of the Obi-Datti policy plan, we have put together a strategic plan to progressively scale up power generation ,and the liberalization of the transmission infrastructure in the country, to ensure that Nigerians enjoy adequate and stable power supply from 2023 onwards. Power is critical to the development and sustainability of all sectors of the national economy.”
