According to a recent opinion pollin Nigeria, 38.1 percent of  respondents “strongly agree” and 34.9 percent “somewhat agree,” “that Goodluck Jonathan is doing a good job as president.” The poll even shows Jonathan with a one hundred percent positive approval rate in Akwa Ibom state, and an average positive performance rating of about ninety percent in the southern states. His lowest score was in Kano with 22.5 percent, but he had an overall approval rate in the North of sixty percent.

The poll, conducted by Ipsos, an international polling firm, was published in This Day, a Nigerian newspaper sympathetic to the Jonathan administration.

I am skeptical that this poll accurately measures Jonathan’s support. Indeed, an approval rating of one hundred percent anywhere stretches credulity. While opinion polls are not unknown in Nigeria, they are not common, either.

Shortly before the 2007 elections, a government cabinet minister came to see me with polling results that ostensibly showed overwhelming support for the governing People’s Democratic Party. In hindsight, the Obasanjo government’s sharing of poll results with the diplomatic community looks like it was part of an orchestrated campaign to try and give credibility to the electoral outcomes despite the massive PDP rigging of the elections. Friends of Nigeria must hope that polling data is not now being used in a similar way before the April 2011 elections.

timbuk two:

^^

John Campbell knows more about this country than you ever will.

EzeUche_:

John Campbell has been predicting fire and brimstone for Nigeria nonstop.

He seems to be obsessed with Nigeria. Hoping that the country breaks up to prove his predictions correct.

EzeUche_:

John Campbell has been predicting fire and brimstone for Nigeria nonstop.

He seems to be obsessed with Nigeria. Hoping that the country breaks up to prove his predictions correct.