B yWilliam Clowes (Bloomberg News)
Nigerian presidential hopeful Peter Obi emerged as the preferred choice to become the country’s next head of state in two opinion polls, the third survey in the past week to show the outsider candidate is the frontrunner.
Two organizations based in the West African country – ANAP Foundation and Kwakol Research – published polling in which respondents identified the former governor of Anambra state as their favorite to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari after elections scheduled for Feb. 25.
Read: Outsider Candidate Leads in Opinion Poll for Nigerian President
In a survey by Premise Data Corp. released last week, 66% of participants who said they’ve decided how to vote selected Obi of the Labour Party over Bola Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress and Atiku Abubakar of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party.
Obi scored 21% in ANAP’s poll of 2,000 people, while Tinubu and Abubakar trailed with 13% and 10% respectively. A total of 53% of respondents were either undecided or refused to answer, according to a statement published on Wednesday. Obi’s lead is “significant but not sufficient to separate him from” the pack, ANAP said.
The Labour Party candidate was identified as the preferred president by almost 53% of participants in Kwakol’s 1,008-person survey that was released on Feb. 13. Tinubu and Abubakar both tallied less than 20%.
