Survey tips Ozigbo, Anambra South for ticket

As the zoning debate gathers steam, an independent survey, commissioned by a Washington DC-based think-tank, the Council on African World Affairs and released this week, has rated Mr. Valentine Ozigbo as the People’s Democratic Party’s aspirant with the highest chances of winning the upcoming Anambra State Governorship Election.

According to the result of the survey, a whopping 50 percent of the 981 PDP delegates surveyed by the think tank said out of the 16 governorship aspirants on the platform of the PDP, Val Ozigbo is the PDP aspirant that is most likely to win the November governorship election. On the zoning debate, 62 percent of them believe that Anambra South Senatorial District should produce the next governor.

In a statement made available to The Nation during the week, the Council on African World Affairs announced the results of the survey, which was carried out by an Abuja consulting firm, Eagle Badger.

Professor JP Afam Ifedi, the Executive Director of the think tank, who signed the statement, said that as a non-partisan organisation, it is invested in deepening and strengthening democracy in Nigeria by supporting political institutions in the conduct of credible elections.

“We have been providing these non-partisan interventions in Nigerian elections, and we aim to provide research-based, evidence-based information that will guide policymakers and educate Nigerian voters,” Professor Ifedi said.

“Plans are in progress to carry out similar research exercises for the upcoming Osun and Ekiti gubernatorial elections, as well as the 2023 General Elections. The research for 2023 is ongoing, and the first report will be out in a couple of weeks.

“This is to provide credible empirical information to the public and the political parties and institutions with a view of expanding the democratic space and making Nigeria better.

“We commissioned this survey for all the political parties participating in the Anambra 2021 governorship election, and what we are giving to you today is the report on the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) report, which is the first to come out,” Ifedi, a political economist who teaches at Howard University, said.

A copy of the survey made available to our correspondent showed that the research was carried out in the 21 local government areas of the state through telephone, with five criteria.

“At the end of this survey, Mr. Valentine Ozigbo received an overwhelming majority of the votes with 50% of the 981 PDP delegates surveyed saying they believed that he was most likely to win the November governorship election of the 16 PDP aspirants,” Ifedi revealed.

“Senator Uche Ekwunife came a distant second place with 16%, and Dr Obiora Okonkwo came third with 13%.”

The think-tank said it also looked at the state’s zoning arrangement and found that over 62 per cent of the delegates favoured that the next governor of the state be elected from the Anambra South Senatorial zone.

The research report revealed that the poll focused on the ability of the individual aspirants to tackle insecurity, unemployment, infrastructure, education, and healthcare in the southeastern state.