More than three-quarters (78%) of Nigerians express “just a little” or no trust in the organization in charge of managing elections, according to a joint study by NOI Polls, Afrobarometer, and CDD Ghana. Only 23% of Nigerians express “somewhat” or “a lot” trust in the Independent National Electoral Commission.
Afrobarometer’s Dispatch No. 598 featured the study titled “Nigerians Want Competitive Elections, But Don’t Trust The Electoral Commission,” which also showed that INEC’s credibility had dropped by 13% since 2017.
The NOIPolls-led Afrobarometer team in Nigeria reported that it spoke with 1,600 adult Nigerians between March 5 and March 31, 2022, in a “nationally representative, random, stratified probability sample.”
The research network claims that a sample of this size “yields country-level results with a margin of error of +/-2.5 percentage points at a 95 per cent confidence level.”
Previous standard surveys were conducted in Nigeria in 2000, 2003, 2005, 2008, 2013, 2015, 2017, and 2020 by the organisation.
According to Saturday PUNCH, Mahmood Yakubu, the chairman of INEC, has assured Nigerians time and time again that the rigging season is over and that their votes will count in the elections of 2023.
“In addition to reservations about election quality, one red flag for Nigeria’s upcoming elections is citizens’ weak trust in the Independent National Electoral Commission,” a part of the report read.
The report headlined by NOIPolls’ Head of Social Research, Raphael Mbaegbu, and Afrobarometer’s Coordinator for Anglophone West and North Africa also showed that trust in INEC had been “fairly weak throughout the past two decades” and had “declined by 12 percentage points since 2017”.
“Popular trust in the INEC is a central issue, and distrust is a major concern, especially in the southern states. The upcoming election is an opportunity for the electoral management body to regain the trust of the electorate by proving itself independent, credible, and competent,” the report added.
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