The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday yanked off from its website an opinion poll conducted on the choice of its two presidential aspirants, President Goodluck Jonathan and former vice president, Atiku Abubakar. It was replaced at about 10am with another one, on the choice of the party as one better positioned to realise Nigeria’s developmental potentials, which it also removed from the website at about 5pm yesterday.
According to the earlier online poll, which began on November 18, Mr Goodluck was trailing behind Mr Abubakar by about 17 votes. While the president scored 665, Mr Abubakar polled 682. Forty eight of the voters did not vote for either of them, while nine others were undecided.
No official of the PDP was prepared to speak on why the poll was removed when our correspondent visited the National Secretariat of the party yesterday. The national Publicity Secretary of the party, Ahmed Rufa’I Alkali could not be reached for comment.
However, some aides of Mr Alkali, who pleaded anonymity, confirmed that they came under pressure from certain quarters to remove the poll section of the website.
All for PDP
According to the poll, on which of the parties in the country “is better positioned to realise Nigeria’s developmental potentials,” which started 12.03 pm yesterday, 28 of the voters, representing 20.3 per cent, voted for the PDP while 98 of them representing 71 per cent voted for “other parties.” The result, which was removed at about 5pm, also showed that six voters representing 4.3 per cent were undecided on the parties while another 4.3 per cent did not choose any party. No reason was also given for the removal.
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