Former Vice President of Nigeria and leading aspirant for the ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party in the presidential election of 2019, Atiku Abubakar has defeated Senate President, Bukola Saraki and former Governor of Kano State, Sen. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso in an online poll conducted by popular blogger, Japeth Omojuwa.
In the Twitter online poll which ended on Tuesday, Atiku Abubakar polled 42% compared to Saraki’s 37% and Kwankwaso’s 15% with the other candidates settling for 6% of the votes.
The poll conducted on the heels of the defections of a sizeable number of Senators and members of the House of Representatives from the ruling All Progressives Congress to the Peoples Democratic Party was ostensibly to gauge the popularity of the defectors with presidential ambition versus Atiku as far as the PDP ticket is concerned.
Kwankwaso, who is known to have presidential aspiration decamped to the PDP on Tuesday along with several others. However, Saraki has not defected to the opposition party though there are indications that he will follow suit. Atiku had earlier in December of 2017 rejoined the PDP, a party he had helped found at inception in 1998.
Voters were asked: ‘Who will emerge the PDP candidate for 2019’. The choices were listed as Bukola Saraki, Atiku Abubakar, Rabiu Kwankwaso and Other (Reply with name).
This is one in a series of polls in which Atiku has come out tops. In a massive online poll that attracted almost 30,000 votes, Atiku vanquished President Muhammadu Buhari and other likely PDP contenders – Governors Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo and Aminu Tambuwal of Gombe and Sokoto states respectively. The poll was conducted by Senator Ben Murray-Bruce.
In answer to the question ‘If the 2019 Nigerian Presidential election were to hold today and the candidates are as below, who would you vote for?’, 44% said they would vote for Atiku Abubakar. This compares to 31% for President Buhari, 17% for Dankwambo and 8% for Tambuwal.
This result is also consistent with a number of recent polls, including those done by well known supporters of President Buhari, who had following the third anniversary of the administration on May 29 initiated polls ostensibly to test the popularity of the incumbent President.
On June 6, 2018, the former Vice President in two polls conducted simultaneously by Omojuwa defeated Buhari. In the first poll Atiku polled 35% of the votes compared to Buhari’s 32%. In the second poll, Atiku secured 39% of the votes while Buhari earned 34% of the votes.
A week earlier, Atiku had also trounced other aspirants in another poll conducted by pro APC consultant, Mark Essien. Atiku polled 43% compared to Buhari’s 35%.
In yet another poll conducted by @YNaija, Nigeria’s most successful youth blog run by Red Media, who played a key role in Buhari’s media during the 2015 elections, Atiku handed Buhari a crushing defeat of 70% versus 19%.
