By Correspondent
The latest opinion ‘poll’ projecting the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu as the likely winner of the presidential election on Saturday 25 February by a private business outfit, Freddan Continental Services registered about a year ago by one Mr. Olufemi Lawsan has been described as misleading, baseless, unfounded and a mere political propaganda.
In a reaction to the publication, published in the front-page of many national dailies on Tuesday (today) as ‘editorial’, a public affairs analyst and the Country Director, Democracy Monitoring Alliance (DMA), an independent political resource group, Mr. Carl Umegboro in media briefing in Abuja faulted the claims of the so-called ‘opinion poll’ arguing that the presenters only acted a script ‘as designed’ to mislead the electorates possibly to demoralize supporters of other candidates from coming out enmasse to vote with a wrong perception that their candidate has no chances to victory on Saturday.
The ’editorial’ was reported as a news-report by many newspapers except Daily Trust newspaper that clearly published it ‘as designed’ with the name of the sponsor-presenter added below it as signatory thereby exposing that it as a script sponsored for publication by an interested party, and not a poll report covered by its media team as ought to.
The analyst said there’s no basis for such a claim when the walls of APC as a political party is virtually with visible cracks, for instance, the same party laments profusely, fighting the federal government it controls over the cashless policy approved by President Muhammadu Buhari, overall leader of the party to move the nation forward irrespective of the temporary pains that accompany the policy. And absurdly, other political parties are aligning with the federal government on the need to curtail vote-buying and other financially-related vices during the election.
He also faulted the claims on the ground that the tribal sentiment-strategy the APC candidate, Tinubu attempted to utilize by his ‘Emi lokan’ towards mobilizing his geopolitical constituency, the Southwest didn’t survive but dead-on-arrival as most of prominent people from Yorubaland openly snubbed tribal sentiment by distancing themselves from his aspiration including the apex sociocultural organization; Afenifere, former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and host of other educated people.
Mr. Umegboro said that all the earlier opinion polls are strong, compelling to believe as the third-force which is the Labour Party is visibly making waves across the nation with its presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi and the running mate, Yusuf Batti Baba-Ahmed widely endorsed across all the regions on account of their profiles which meet the standard requirement for leadership positions even in the advanced climes.
“There’s no basis for such a claim to survive as all indices points to APC candidate emerging as the third or fourth position, not even second position in the presidential election as the money-politics and intimidation they had adopted in the past have hit the brick wall by new Electoral Act and President Buhari’s cashless policy. To be candid, APC as a political party lost it at its national convention when it myopically failed to nominate the widely admired Prof Yemi Osinbajo, incumbent vice president and erudite senior advocate of Nigeria to fly its flag. Since then, it has been from one propaganda, deceit, controversy to another but seemingly futile exercises.
“So, it is absurd to claim that APC will capture 17 northern states when PDP and NNPP with popular northern citizens as candidates are also in the race, let alone the Labour Party (LP) that is presently the heartbeat of the masses across the nation particularly young people that have been the worst hit from leadership quagmires in the country over the years.
‘All the previous opinion polls conducted by credible and non-partisan platforms show clearly that the masses are worn-out with the two hitherto dominant political parties; APC and PDP, and yearningly subscribe for a third-force – Labour Party due to intimidating profiles and antecedents of its presidential candidate and running-mate which speak volume, Umegboro stated.