Ondo Election as thé Battle of thé Barrister Candidates Continues
Alliance for Democracy (AD) candidate, Chief
Olusola Oke, may emerge tops in next Saturday,
November 26, 2016 governorship election in Ondo
State, if the outcome of an independent opinion
poll conducted in the state to determine the
possible choice of the people is anything to go
by.
In the opinion poll, Oke was followed by former
Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) President, Mr.
Oluwarotimi Akeredolu of the All Progressives
Congress (APC) and Barrister Jimoh Ibrahim, the
candidate of the Senator Ali Modu Sheriff-led
faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in
that order. Thirty-seven per cent of respondents
across the state said they would prefer Oke to
succeed Governor Olusegun Mimiko at the
Alagbaka Government House while 22 per cent
opted for Akeredolu.
Sixteen percent of respondents went for Ibrahim,
Dr, Olu Agunloye of the Social Democratic Party
(SDP) -14 per cent, while 11per cent said they
were either undecided or indifferent.
The
questionnaires were designed around the
aspirations of four candidates considered to be
leading contenders in the battle to succeed
Governor Mimiko. They are Oke of AD, Akeredolu
of APC, Ibrahim of Sheriff-led PDP faction and
Agunloye of SDP.
Former Commissioner for Justice and Attorney-
General in the state, Mr. Eyitayo Jegede,
Mimiko’s preferred candidate, who belongs to the
Senator Ahmed Makarfi PDP faction, may have
lost out in the governorship race as a result of
the supremacy battle between the two PDP
camps, which is still raging in court.
Jegede’s name was replaced by that of Ibrahim in
the Independent National Electoral Commission
(INEC)’s List of Candidates for the poll, based on
a court order.
In the opinion poll conducted across the three
Senatorial districts in the state- Ondo Central,
Ondo North and Ondo South- a total of 3000
respondents, many of whom are registered voters
in the state, were sampled. Their ages range from
25 to 55 years.
They were randomly picked across major towns in
the three districts, with 1,400, the highest, coming
from Ondo Central, which constitutes about 50 per
cent of the voting population in the state.
Oke’s leading points, according to the poll,
emerged from the respondents’ view that he is a
grassroots man with loads of integrity and one
who can be trusted to deliver on his promise,
indices on which some other candidates ranked
low.
Prominent lawyer, Oke was formerly of APC, but
he dumped the party and moved over to AD in
protest against the APC gubernatorial primaries
allegedly characterised by fraud and manipulation.
Four questions were asked each of the
respondents. They are- (1) which of the four
leading candidates would you trust with your
vote? (2) Which of them has the best programme
for the state? (3) Which political party do you
think would be best for Ondo State? (4) Which of
the candidate do you consider most grassroots–
oriented?
Three thousand respondents were polled across
the three Senatorial districts in the state. They
were polled in Akure, Ondo and Idanre in Ondo
Central; Okitipupa, Ilaje and Ese-Odo in Ondo
South, and Owo, Ikare, Akoko North-west in Ondo
North.
770 respondents were randomly picked and
interviewed in Akure, 400 in Ondo Township and
230 in Idanre all in Odun Central. Responding to
the question as to which of the candidate they
would trust if they were voting on Saturday, over
50 percent of them mentioned Oke. He was
closely followed by Akeredolu aka Aketi as a few
others also picked him. Also, a total of 931 of the
1,400 respondents polled in Ondo Central district
picked AD when they were asked which party
would be best for the state.
In Ondo North, precisely in Aketi’s hometown of
Owo, Akoko North-west and Ikare, where a total
of 900 people were polled by the survey officials,
a majority of the respondents also picked Oke as
the most grassroots-oriented candidate, with
some describing him as a ‘grassroots man’, ‘man
of the people’ while some other candidates were
seen as aloof, with a few respondents describing
them as ‘Abuja politicians.’
The remaining 700 respondents were polled in
Ondo South, where Oke and Ibrahim hail from.
The survey was administered by Poll Consult,
which specialises in opinion poll and survey. It is
based in Lagos with offices in state capitals in
the South-west including Akure in Ondo State - with Samson Ogunbameru.
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