Osun: Poll Predicts 65% Victory For Aregbesola

Incumbent Osun State governor, Rauf Aregbesola, is predicted to be returned by as much as 65 per cent of vote counts in Saturday’s gubernatorial election in the state, a poll on voter preference conducted by Upward BAO Consulting, a management consultancy research firm based in Lagos, with associate consultants across Nigerian and UK universities and research institutions has revealed.

The firm said it used survey data to predict voting patterns in Osun in the run-up to the election.

The state-wide opinion poll carried out between Sunday, July 27 and Saturday, August 2, 2014, and in 12 of the most populous cities and towns in the state, also revealed that Iyiola Omisore, candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), would most likely get 17 percent of the votes, while Fatai Akinbade, candidate of the Labour Party (LP), would get 10 percent.

According to the poll, the percentage of Osun residents who planned to vote for ‘others’ or remained undecided was eight percent.

“Methodologically, the poll was carried out in the 12 cities and towns, given the fact that Osun is a highly urbanised state with high population density concentrated in the cities and towns. The poll areas include Osogbo (with 110, 670 voters), Ile-Ife (mostly East and Central with 95,471 and 81, 430 voters respectively), Ilesha (East and West with 54, 746 and 52, 286 votes) and Ikire (53, 487 votes). Others are Ila-Orangun, Ede, Ikirun, Gbongan, Iwo, Ipetumodu Okuku and Modakeke. The 12 cities and towns cut across the three senatorial districts in Osun State,” it stated.

The poll, which also sought to know the respondents’ views on level of performance of the incumbent administration in the state, disclosed that “81percent of the respondents approved that the incumbent governor has performed creditably”, citing the school free feeding programme, farmers’ welfare, O-YES, road networks, and security of lives and property, as indicators of performance. A minority of 19percent believe otherwise.

“Yet, several of those who said they would vote for PDP or Labour said that the APC candidate was a better performer than his predecessors,” the poll revealed.

On the possible voter turnout, the survey shows that “a large voter turn-out is expected, as 88percent of the respondents said they would vote and around same percentage said they had permanent voters’ cards”.

Based on the data collected, collated, coded and analysed, none of the other major candidates is said to have a chance of getting any appreciable number of votes.

Aregbesola is also shown by the survey to be very popular among the indigines and voters of Osun.

“If the election is free and fair, it is postulated that Aregbesola will get a second term, since the overwhelming majority of the electorate want him as a result of performance,” the poll further shows.

“The predictive value of the polling exercise for the forthcoming gubernatorial election is very high. With revelations from across the big cities and towns, having the highest percentage of the voters, conclusions from data analysis show clearly that all things being equal, the incumbent Governor Rauf Aregbesola of the All Progressives Congress (APC) will win decisively, to be distantly followed by Iyiola Omisore of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Fatai Akinbade of the Labour Party (LP) in that order. Several of the other candidates were not known to the people,” it maintained.

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