On Monday, Nigerians woke up to adverts in Daily Trust and THISDAY, among other newspapers, announcing that Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo was going to win the presidential ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC) with 857 delegate votes.
A previously unknown organisation, named Democratic Research Initiative (DRI), said it had polled over 1,200 of the expected 2,322 delegates and had adopted a “stratified sampling technique” to arrive at its conclusions.
Although it described itself as a “respected research and strategy institution”, there was no contact address on the advert and all internet searches returned blank: no website, no Twitter handle, no phone number, no e-mail or physical address.
The DRI projected that Bola Tinubu, the former governor of Lagos, will get 571 votes in the primary election scheduled for Tuesday, June 7, 2022.
Other projections are: Rotimi Amaechi, 329; Godswill Akpabio, 40; Kayode Fayemi, 124; David Umahi 20; and Ahmad Lawan, one.
But one man, or his campaign team, has taken exception to the advert: Yahaya Bello, the governor of Kogi state, who was allocated 22 votes by the DRI.
The Monday advert by “Democratic Research Initiative” gave Osinbajo the APC presidential ticket with 857 projected delegate votes
In apparent retaliation, Bello’s team placed an advert on Tuesday, allocating the same 875 votes to the governor and 40 votes to the vice-president — and attributing it to the same Democratic Research Initiative.
Bello was more generous to the vice-president by 18 votes.
A counter advert by the same “Democratic Research Initiative” allocated the same number of votes and the presidential ticket to Bello
Almost all other figures remained the same: Rotimi Amaechi, 329; Godswill Akpabio, 124; Kayode Fayemi, 22; David Umahi, 20; and Ahmad Lawan, one.
Notably, the 22 votes attributed to Bello in the pro-Osinbajo advert were moved to Fayemi in the Bello advert, while the 124 attributed to Fayemi in the Osinbajo advert were transferred to Akpabio by the Bello team.
TheCable could not officially confirm how much the “Democratic Research Initiative” paid to place two contradictory adverts in the newspapers as such information is usually considered confidential.
Culled: The Cable
