Stears poll predicts next president is Peter Obi

After conducting Nigeria’s most robust public opinion polls for the 2023 cycle, the top-rated Nigerian intelligence company, Stears, has concluded that the Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, is the most universally-accepted candidate in the race.

What the poll said: According to the poll analysis, made available to Pulse on Tuesday, February 07, 2023, Peter Obi is the candidate that achieves at least 25% of the vote in the most geopolitical zones (5 out of 6) amongst voters that declared their candidate preference. He leads the All Progressive Candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu (4 out of 5), while Atiku Abubakar, of the Peoples Democratic Party, only secures 25% of the vote in two (2) geopolitical zones.

What you should know: ANAP polls conducted between September and December 2022 twice had shown that Obi is ahead of other frontline candidates. Also, just few days ago, the Nextier Poll also predicted a Peter Obi win.

What makes Stears poll different from other polls: Over 6200 Nigerians polled, making it the Nigerian poll with the largest sample size, offline.

Also Stears solved a problem that has been a limitation on all other previous polls, making truly a ground breaking poll

Explaining this problem now solved, Michael Famoroti, Head of Intelligence & Co-Founder at Stears, said, "simple analysis of the poll results puts Peter Obi in the lead with 27% of all votes, ahead of Bola Ahmed Tinubu (15%) and Atiku Abubakar (12%). This is aligned with the results of other polls; however, it is hard to draw definite conclusions without examining the large portion of respondents who do not provide a candidate preference—a proportion as high as 50% in previously released polls. Where other polls have been inconclusive due to the large share of silent voters, Stears’ proprietary model is able to provide answers by predicting the most likely candidate for silent voters."

Fig 1-2 ANAP Poll Results Pulse Nigeria

Who the silent voters represent: Stears’ predictive model assigns 43% of undeclared votes to Tinubu, suggesting that most who were unwilling to reveal their votes were BATified. Despite this, Peter Obi still remains ahead of all other frontline runners, when the reassigned silent voters are added to the declared voter count.

Fig 1-3 Final model prediction Pulse Nigeria

Fig 1-6 PO Universally accepted Pulse Nigeria

Other key take-outs from Stears Poll

Nigerians vote along religious lines, although the respondents would not admit to it.
The only region where Peter Obi fails to secure 25% of the vote is the North-West, where the presence of Rabiu Kwankwaso means that votes are most evenly split in the region.
Kwara State is considered a swing state and has successfully predicted the results of each Presidential Election since 1999.
Bola Tinubu wins in Kwara.
Bola Tinubu wins the elections in a case of low voter turnout.

For more reading see 5 states that could determine Nigeria's next president here