In March 2011, Thisday published a research it jointly did with Ipsos – an international company. In the poll, PDP won the Presidential election by 60.3%.
There were expectedly mixed reactions to the results of the THISDAY/Ipsos poll on the 2011 general election published in the newspaper on Monday which indicated that President Goodluck Jonathan would win the presidential election by 60.3 per cent, while the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) may lose the governorship in five states.
While the presidential candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) faulted the results, the governorship candidate of ACN in Benue State, Professor Steve Ugbah, and that of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in Imo State, Chief Rochas Okorocha, described the
poll as a true reflection of the facts on the ground.
Many Nigerians accused Thisday of fabricating results. The international company even had to come to explain their methodology. Even with that, not much progress was made. The opposition accused them of scientific dishonesty – even saying that Thisday was paid.
Oh Yes, the election is over. And Tekedia decided to compare that poll with the actual election result. Within statistical error, they were very close. In short, Ipsos stated the error to be +/- 6.3%
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All sample surveys are subject to statistical error, depending on sample size, interviewing
methodology and response rate. The margin of error for the national figures in this poll is 0.93. This means that in 95 out of every 100 cases, the findings will fall within +/- 0.93% range when looking at the national results. The margin of error for state level figures is +/- 6.3%.
Nigerian journalists rarely have time to follow up on events – no time. But we just decided to follow up. On INEC website, PDP won the Presidential election by 58.89%. If you take the 6.3% deviation given by Thisday, they nailed it. We mean 60.3 – 6.3 = 54%. At 58.89%, Thisday was right on spot.
Tekedia thinks that Nigeria has improved and it is time people begin to give us credit. Thisday was right and we are confident that in the next election, this must guide everyone to pay attention to polls because they could reflect the reality.
Thisday, Congrats for getting this right.
