In what appeared a last minute face saver, efforts were rallied by the Presidency to ensure that President Goodluck Jonathan overtook former Head of State, General Muhammadu Buhari, in an opinion poll initiated by presidential aide, Reno Omokri.
And as soon as that was achieved, the opinion poll was shut down.
Jonathan, at the close of the poll, had 49.3 per cent of the total votes cast, which translated to 13,111 votes, while Buhari’s 12,875 votes fetched him 48.41 per cent of the votes cast.
In all, 26,595 voters took part in the opinion poll.
Before Sunday’s last minute rally, the opinion poll, initiated by Omokri on his blog, Build Up Nigeria, saw Jonathan far behind Buhari in terms of ranking.
As at 3.20pm on Sunday, Buhari, who last week announced his aspiration on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, was leading.
The poll question simply was: “If the Nigerian Presidential election were held today, who would you vote for between President Goodluck Jonathan and General Muhammadu Buhari?”
On Saturday evening, while Buhari had 6,411 votes, representing 69.87 per cent of the total votes, Jonathan was lagging behind with 2,455 votes, representing 26.75 per cent of the votes cast so far then.
Those undecided on who to vote for were 310, representing 3.38 per cent of participants in the poll.
Obviously following scathing remarks on the trend of the poll, a face saving move was made to reverse the gains of Buhari.
As at Sunday afternoon, when a total of 22,511 votes had been cast, Buhari had 11,153 votes, which represented 49.54 per cent of the votes cast, while Jonathan followed with 10,814 votes, representing 48.04 per cent of the votes.
Votes numbering 544, which represents 2.42 per cent, were undecided.
However, as soon as Jonathan overtook Buhari in the poll, which opened on October 16, a day after Buhari declared his presidential ambition, the poll was shut down.
Reports in certain sections of the media had it that Omokri was queried by the Presidency for the embarrassing opinion poll.
This was before he succeeded in reversing the trend.
He was said to have been summoned to the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Chief Anyim Pius Anyim.
The Eagle Online
