Abujan Nigeria. December 31st, 2013 – Our Journey in 2013: Greetings from the NOIPolls team! Best wishes for a productive and healthy 2014 ahead. The year 2013 was a remarkable year for the organisation. We made giant strides towards becoming the key provider for the much needed data and timely information on Nigeria to users in Africa and across the globe. We continued our stance as an innovative company by putting Africa on the map as the only polling organisation carrying out President Job approval ratings in Africa and second in the world, the only other organisation doing this is Gallup in the USA.
2013 also saw the launch and operation of Nigeria’s (probably the continent’s) first ever Opinion Polling Call Center (NOIPolls Opinion Polling Center; NOPC) operating out of Abuja. This has pushed up the frequency of our snap polls from once a month in 2012 to four times a month with the Poll results released every Tuesday at 9am. If you haven’t subscribed to the e-newsletter for information on the results, you should immediately, I can bet that it would open a whole new world of insight and knowledge on the perceptions, tastes and trends of Nigerians on every topic from products, services, government policies to governance. The NOPC also has the capacity and, has been carrying out specific polling projects across the Federal Republic for clients in the FMCG, Banking, Energy, Telecommunications sectors, also for NGOs, CSOs, development institutions and academia to support and enrich their work/business. This provides timely and quick to see results that enhances decision-making. Speaking more on our innovations, over the year we started tracking Power Supply to Nigerian Households from January 2013 with the aim to provide a baseline for Nigerians / power sector stakeholders to evaluate the transition and performance of the new owners of Nigerian Power assets. Over the 12 months in view, we can loosely tie perception of households on power to the President’s approval rating. All this information is available on our website. Our yearly releases on Football Fanaticism, Telecommunications services, Nigeria’s Independence celebrations, the Holiday Season and a special edition release (this year on questioning the Poverty threshold) has elicited power debates across the country and provided a trend on the users of these services over the two years in review. This year has also seen us form strong partnerships/bonds with our key stakeholder groups (Media, Third Sector organisations, Private Sector businesses, Public Sector parastatals and the Nigerian Public) through our awareness workshops, seminars, talk shows and the NOIPolls Open Day. These events provided an interactive platform for users of our data to understand the methodology, process and analysis of data collection and how best to use the data to enhance research and planning. 2014 promises to be a very exciting and fired up year for NOIPolls, 2014 sees us releasing our portfolio of indices (another first for Nigeria), we would be evaluating the growth of the Nigerian Economy through our Consumer Confidence Index, Business Confidence Index, Purchasing Manager’s Index and the Personal Well Being Index from January 2014, also we start the very exciting Journey to 2015 Elections roll with bi-monthly polls on the Nigerian voting public, our snap polls continue in their frequency alongside our quarterly and yearly releases. We would also be releasing our much-awaited publications; the NOIPolls bi-annual National Survey, The Business Leaders Perception Survey, The BET Report (Banking, Energy, Telecommunications), The Niger Delta report and our Centenary edition of Revealing Nigeria (a six year journey). This is a whole lot of data coming your way so do get subscribed to our weekly newsletter to stay connected to the source. We remain grateful to all those who have supported this drive to ensure that opinion research becomes and, is sustained as a rich and key complement to product/service development, policy planning, monitoring interventions and most of all nation building and development. For the final release of the year 2013, I have selected three Very Important Polls (VIPs) that require intensified level of attention across the Nation. I believe these highlighted issues are a ‘community’ problem and desire that we all join in the fight against substance abuse, child labour and violence against women. Do enjoy my selection of the VIPs for 2013 and again, best wishes for a most fruitful 2014. Oge Funlola Modie
Preserving Our Future as a Nation
*15 to 29 age group most abusers of substance in Nigeria Nigeria is blessed with a teeming young population forming about 60% of the 170m Nigerians. I say blessed because therein lies the novelty of young and vibrant ideas, creativity, a new technology age, no inherited biases and a quest for knowledge. Also therein lies the future of our beautiful Nation and sadly a growing drug/substance abuse problem. Our poll conducted in July 2013 threw up a problem we may all be avoiding to address; the continued growth of drug and substance abuse among our young population. Overall more than 9 in 10 Adult Nigerians agree that there is a high level of drug/substance abuse in Nigeria. 9 in 10 Adults Nigerians say that known abusers of substance are young adults between the ages of 15 to 29.
Also highlighted as the most abused substances were Marijuana, Cough syrup (with Codeine) and Alcohol. These substances all have regional stakes, Alcohol mostly in the South East, Cough Syrup with codeine in the North East and Marijuana in the North West and South West Regions of the country. We also see subscription drugs coming up as one of the substances abused alongside tobacco. How long before we realise we are losing our future to this menace?
The most scary thing is that these substances are easily obtained across the country; cough syrup is an over the counter (OTC) drug, you do not need an ID to buy alcohol and Marijuana (aka igbo) is sold freely on the streets. This is a sad occurrence and needs the help of every one to support our young ones in moving away from this. Read more on the poll here.
Slavery Versus Culture *Almost 9 in 10 Adult Nigerians see children engaged in labour daily. We are a multi-cultural Nation with a strong sense of pride and love in our diverse culture and in carrying on in the steps of our ancestors, however, the fact is that times are changing and so are the perceptions of core traditional activities which we otherwise still term as culture or ‘upbringing’. One such activity is the use of Children in labour that is physically, mentally or emotionally hazardous to them, could deprive or interfere with their education or deny children of a suitable life for them.
7 in 10 Adults Nigerians see Children mostly involved in street hawking in their communities daily, this is followed by 3 in 10 who see Children involved in street roaming and begging and another 3 in 10 who see children as house/domestic helps. A portion of Child Street Hawkers are on a ‘mission’ to support the household earnings of the family or even sometimes school fees by this commercial activity. Nigeria has been listed as one of the ten worst countries for child labour by CNN in 2013.
What was most challenging about this Poll was the fact we had more dropped calls that we have ever experienced in the history of the organisation, apparently we had more culprits than we had imagined at the onset of the poll. We polled about 7000 to 8000 respondents to achieve 1000 completed interviews. It is indeed a very bad situation and needs to be addressed by all levels of government. One key remedy as put forward by Nigerians was to have free and compulsory basic education across the country. I believe COMPULSORY is the key word there. Read more on the high prevalence of Child Labour in Nigeria here;
Gender equality; First deal with Violence 3 in 10 Nigerians claim to know a rape victim The gang rape incident of a young woman in India which lead to her death early in the year led us to thinking of what extent of rape prevalence we had in Nigeria. Our results indicate a large extent of the prevalence of rape in the society as almost 4 in 10 adult Nigerians agreed to this. What was disturbing is that 3 in 10 adult Nigerians attribute rape to indecent dressing, almost pointing to the fact that women do deserve to be molested based on the criminal’s view or definition of ‘indecent dressing’.
More than 4 in 10 Nigerians believe that cases go unreported because of the stigma associated with rape while 3 in 10 believe that the family would be disgraced. Also if 3 in 10 claim to know a rape victim, this translates for me that 3 in 10 Nigerians have been a victim of rape, that is a high number, given the sensitivities of the poll, we had a +/- 4% margin or error. So do the recalculation.
Everyday in the papers, we see the stories of rape of children, young women, old women, widows etc. Who is protecting the rights of women? Who is ensuring that examples are being made of defaulters? Thumbs up to the National Assembly for the second reading of the bill In favour of violence against women but we need stiffer penalties for the culprits and a proper example of convicted persons. One more thing though, when will the silent victims of marital rape speak up? Read more on the rape poll here;
About NOIPolls NOIPolls Limited, No.1 for country-specific polling services in West Africa, which works in technical partnership with the Gallup Organisation (USA), to conduct periodic opinion polls and studies on various socio-economic and political issues in Nigeria. More information is available at www.noi-polls.com
Disclaimer This press release has been produced by NOIPolls Limited to provide information on all issues which form the subject matter of the document. Kindly note that while we are willing to share results from our polls with the general public, we only request that NOIPolls be acknowledged as author whenever and wherever our poll results are used, cited or published. NOIPolls hereby certifies that all the views expressed in this document accurately reflect its views of respondents surveyed for the poll, and background information is based on information from various sources that it believes are reliable; however, no representation is made that it is accurate or complete. Whilst reasonable care has been taken in preparing this document, no responsibility or liability is accepted for errors or fact or for any views expressed herein by NOIPolls for actions taken as a result of information provided in this report. Any ratings, forecasts, estimates, opinions or views herein constitute a judgement as at the date of this document. If the date of this document is not current, the views and content may not reflect NOIPolls’ current findings and/or thinking. Press Contact The Editor Email: editor@noi-polls.com
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