The candidate of Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, has maintained a clear lead in a third and final nationwide opinion poll commissioned by Anap Foundation and conducted by NOI Polls Limited (NOIPolls).

The result of the latest poll which was concluded in the first half of February 2023  was released on Wednesday by the President and Founder of Anap Foundation, Mr. Atedo Peterside.

It followed two earlier polls conducted in September and December 2022.

In a statement announcing the outcome of the poll, the foundation said: “For the avoidance of doubt, it is pertinent to mention that the methodology used by NOI polls is almost the exact same methodology that was used in previous presidential polls that they handled for us in 2011, 2015 and 2019.

“In all those past presidential polls, the front-runner that was identified by our polls ended up winning the elections, irrespective of a rather large percentage of voters who were undecided and/or refused to indicate who their preferred candidate was.

“We have also applied the exact same methodology in our various governorship polls carried out in 2011, 2014, 2015, 2019 and 2022 and the methodology generally held up well.”

Anap said its third and final poll result in February 2023 showed that Obi of the Labour Party remains in the lead, with Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) both trailing him while Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) emerged as the “lone outsider”.

Poll Question: Suppose the presidential election is being conducted today, who are you likely to vote for?

Total (%)             Distribution across Geo-Political Zones   Poll Ranking

North    Central North East          North West        South East          South South    South West

Peter Obi (LP)                  21%       24%       6%         8%         53%       38%       14%       1st

Bola Tinubu (APC)           13%       16%       16%       20%       1%         3%              15%       2nd

Atiku Abubakar (PDP)    10%       4%         17%       20%       3%         5%         3%              3rd

Rabiu Kwankwaso (NNPP)           3%         1%         4%         8%         0%         1%              0%         4th

Undecided         23%       20%       28%       26%       7%         19%       30%

Refused              30%       35%       29%       18%       36%       34%       38%

Total     100%

Source: NOIPolls – February 2023

“Obi leads with 21% of registered voters proposing to vote for him if the presidential election were to be conducted today; and 13% proposing to vote for Tinubu who fell in second place. Atiku was third with 10% and Kwankwaso was a distant fourth with 3% of voters proposing to vote for him.

“Given the large pool of undecided voters and/or those who refused to disclose their preferred choice, Mr. Peter Obi’s 8%-point lead at this stage is significant, but not sufficient to separate him from a leading pack of candidates scoring 13%, 10% and 3%.

“Undecided voters and those who prefer not to reveal their preferred candidate add up to a whopping 23% and 30% respectively. The gender split of undecided voters shows that 27% of women are undecided versus 18% of male registered voters,” Anap said.