Greetings from the NOIPolls team! We hope your year has been great. The year 2018 has been a remarkable year for the organization. We have continued to provide the much-needed data and timely information on Nigeria to users in Africa and across the globe. We have also repositioned ourselves to better serve our audience.
For our final release of the year 2018, I have selected five key polls obtained from the nationwide polling exercises we have done this year. These I believe require intensified level of attention across the Nation as we head towards interesting times in our country. I hope you find them interesting and as usual will deeply appreciate any feedback from you. We are most grateful to our partners who have supported this activity throughout the year giving voice to the many Nigerians who otherwise have not being exposed to opinion polling.
Our sincere appreciation goes to you for a good business relationship and reliable friendship. We are sending you heartfelt wishes for peace, joy, and abundance this holiday season as we look forward to serving you in the coming year.
Merry Christmas and a very happy New Year.
Don’t forget to follow us on twitter @NOIPolls and Facebook www.facebook.com/NoiPolls.com for daily news updates.
Also visit our website at www.noi-polls.com to see all other polls
Best regards,
Dr. Chike Nwangwu
CEO, NOIPolls
Highlights of some polls conducted in 2018
A poll conducted in January 2019 to assess the ongoing Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) revealed that Nigerians scored the exercise 57 percent, indicating an average assessment. The poll which consisted of a mix of telephone and on-the-ground face-to-face interviews at registration centres around the FCT further revealed that about 8 in 10 (81 percent) fresh registrants stated that they experienced some challenges at registration centres such as: Long Queues (35 percent), Distance to Registration Centres (25 percent), Inadequate Computer Systems (19 percent), Late arrival of INEC Officials (16 percent); Poor Communication Skills of INEC Officials (11 percent), and Inadequate Personnel (7 percent) to mention a few. Interestingly, the on-the-ground face-to-face assessment of the exercise gave enumerators the opportunity to observe and hear directly from prospective registrants, who complained of having to wake up as early as 3:00 am to visit registration centres and still experience difficulty registering due to long queues and the sheer number of people coming out to register. In some specific instances, out of over 200 names on an attendance list at a centre, only about 30 prospective registrants got registered daily due to inadequacy of INEC officials and computer systems. The poll found that most registration centres had only a single laptop computer, which had the capacity to register about 30 to 40 people daily without technical disruptions.
International Women’s Day Poll – https://www.noi-polls.com/root/index.php?pid=480&ptid=1&parentid=12
In commemoration of the International Women’s Day (IWD) which is observed annually on March 8th, NOIPolls conducted a poll in March 2018 which revealed that 91 percent of adult Nigerians acknowledged that there is a huge gap in gender equality especially in political representation, mainly due to cultural norms and religious beliefs (29 percent). Interestingly, the poll results also revealed that majority of Nigerians (85 percent) believe that women make great leaders and this assertion cuts across gender, geo-political zones and age-groups. More findings from the poll revealed that majority of the respondents who think that there is gender inequality blamed cultural norms and religious beliefs (29 percent). Also, 17 percent of the respondents were of the opinion that gender inequality exists in Nigeria is because women are perceived to be weak and lack the capacity to lead amongst all other mentions.
On the other hand, respondents who thought that there is gender equality were further asked to state the reason for their assertion and most respondents (37 percent) stated that there is gender equality as they notice lots of women in politics in Nigeria. 25 percent also mentioned that women have equal constitutional rights in the country, while 16 percent of the respondents mentioned that representation should be by merit and not gender.
Buhari’s Approval Ratings – https://www.noi-polls.com/root/index.php?pid=494&parentid=12&ptid=1
In commemoration of President Buhari’s 3rd year in office, NOIPolls released figures from its monthly approval rating for the 3-year period (June 2015 to May 2018). The results revealed that over the last three years the President’s job performance rating has taken a downward plunge, plummeting from his highest rating of 78 percent and 80 percent recorded in September and October 2015, to 37 percent recorded in August 2016 and more recently 38 percent and 39 percent in the months of February and April 2018 respectively. In more specific terms, the average approval rating of the president in 2018 stood below average at 39.6 percent; with his latest rating at 41 percent in May 2018 as at the time of the release. Furthermore, Nigerians also appraised the performance of President Buhari on specific indicators using a Likert scale of 1 to 5, where 1 represents Very Poor and 5 represents Excellent. Starting off with his 3 cardinal policy thrusts: the president was rated 43 percent on Security; 32 percent on Corruption; and 16 percent on the Economy. Similarly, he scored 34 percent on Agriculture and Food Security, 27 percent on Power, 25 percent on Healthcare, 24 percent on Education, 21 percent on Infrastructure, 15 percent on Job Creation, and 12 percent on Poverty Alleviation. Overall, from the 10 key indicators analyzed, President Buhari was rated poorly on 9 indicators, with only 1 indicator rated slightly below average (security)
A poll conducted in May 2018 revealed that that 7 in 10 (65 percent) Nigerians believe the nation is not secure, thus indicating a poor state of security in Nigeria. The North-East (55 percent) accounted for the highest proportion of Nigerians who had a negative perception on security. These findings were not surprising considering the rising spate of violent extremism over the years which have been a major source of insecurity especially in the North-East. The poll also sought to measure the perception of respondents on peculiar security challenges they are facing in their immediate environment and findings revealed ‘‘armed robbery’’ (25 percent), ‘’herdsmen/famers clashes’’ (14 percent) and ‘’kidnapping’’ (8 percent) as the top three security challenges in Nigeria. It is worthy to note that while armed robbery was mostly lamented by respondents in the South-East zone (38 percent), respondents in the North-East zone (48 percent) indicated Boko-Haram as the major security threat they are facing. In addition, respondents in the North-Central (33 percent) did not hesitate to mention “herdsmen/famers clashes” given the high occurrence of these clashes in this zone.
The poll also revealed that almost 7 in 10 (69 percent) Nigerians do not know any security helpline to call in an emergency, implying that most Nigerians are unable to report any emergency security issue when the need arises. During the course of this poll, majority of the respondents complained of their inability to recall the eleven digits security mobile numbers provided by the Nigerian Police and advocated on the spot that the Nigerian Police should have a three (3) digits number for all emergencies. The poll also gauged the perception of Nigerians on how well-equipped security operatives are in tackling security challenges and findings revealed that 24 percent of respondents stated that security operatives are “not well quipped” to tackle security challenges. On the other hand, 43 percent believed that they are “well equipped “and the North-East zone (56 percent) had the largest proportion of Nigerians who mentioned this. This could be attributed to the heavy presence of armed forces with heavy weaponry due to the ongoing fight against insurgency in the region. Information technology (IT) plays a critical role in strengthening security against potential future attacks hence, it is vital for Nigerian security operatives to synergize with relevant stakeholders and adopt the use of 3-digit security helpline to enable Nigerians share information more readily as soon as they identify potential threats.
A poll conducted in August 2018 revealed that new media (social media, blogs, etc.) is a major breeding ground for fake news in the country as indicated by 67 percent of Nigerians. More findings revealed that radio (39 percent) remained the primary source of information for most Nigerians despite the emergence of social media. Also, perception on trust across media platforms regarding authentic information dissemination showed that Nigerians are more likely to trust information from traditional media; Television (59 percent), Radio (53 percent) and Newspaper (48 percent)) than other sources such as Facebook, Word of mouth, Instagram, etc. The poll results also revealed that the issue of fake news is very prevalent in the country as indicated by 93 percent of the respondents interviewed. The effects of fake news cannot be over emphasized as it is capable of upsetting the country’s social balance. In line with this, a larger share (35 percent) of Nigerians lamented that fake news is capable of promoting and encouraging hatred and violence whereas, 25 percent believe it can cause panic and tension amongst other negative effects.
In an attempt to create awareness on these effects of fake news in the nation, the Federal Government launched a national campaign against fake news, an initiative which 56 percent of the respondents claim to be unaware of. This implied that more effort must be made in spreading the campaign especially at grassroots level. In line with this, 30 percent of the respondents stated that there should be sensitization on the dangers of rumour mongering and the spread of fake news in the country. Lastly, the poll revealed he need for to tackle the challenge of fake news as 25 percent of the respondents suggested promoting professionalism amongst journalists in both traditional media and social media in Nigeria.
Comments