Majority of Nigerians have scored President Muhammadu Buhari low on creation of jobs, economy, and power for the first time in months according to a new poll conducted by Governance Advancement Initiative for Nigeria (GAIN).
President Muhammadu Buhari
A monthly poll tracking the performance of governments at all levels in Nigeria, and providing feedback from the public to their elected officials, has recorded President Muhammadu Buhari’s first major approval rating slide.
The February survey by Governance Advancement Initiative for Nigeria (GAIN), said more Nigerians for the first time since December 2015 scored Buhari low on jobs, economy, and power.
In earlier months, the poll found that majority of respondents did not blame President Buhari for Nigeria’s current economic troubles. They blamed former President Goodluck Jonathan instead.
The trend however shifted significantly in February as the nation’s economic crisis bit harder, in what the poll coordinators said suggested the president’s “honey moon” might have ended.
“The survey was administered using electronic media between February 22nd and 29th, 2016. A total of 757 complete responses were received. The survey results have a 4% margin of error at a 95% confidence level,” said Malcolm Fabiyi, one of the poll’s coordinators, who previously served as a visiting professor at the Lagos Business School.
The February result showed that Buhari’s approval rating dropped from 63.4% in January to 32.8%, and more Nigerians held the president responsible for the struggling economy for the first time.
The president scored low on jobs, economy, power, and rule of law. A huge 79% of respondents rated the government’s handling of recurring clashes between herdsmen and farmers poor.
Buhari government overall approval rating declines
We saw the sharpest decline in the month-to-month approval ratings for the president yet in our polls. High approval ratings dropped from 63.4% in January to 32.8% in the February poll. Overall, a slight majority of Nigerians (50.4%) gave the Buhari administration average (17.6%) or high approval ratings (32.8%). As with previous polls, we provided respondents with a 5 point-scale response to this question. We maintained our approach of not using a simple forced two-scale measure of approval (Yes or No) to enable a deeper understanding of the nuances that informed respondents’ choices.
A positive approval rating in our terminology refers only to those respondents that reported either an “Excellent” or “Good” rating. A negative rating comprises of those individuals that reported a “Poor” or “Very Poor” rating.
Security, Anticorruption, Power and the Economy are priority areas
Respondents were provided with a number of key segments and focus areas for the government and were required to provide a forced three tier ranking (High, Medium, Low) of their perceptions of the importance of each of the areas.
Under the “High” ranking response, security (Boko Haram Crisis) was rated as the most important area of concern and/or interest by 55% of Nigerians, continuing the trend from the January poll. The top 5 rated areas overall were Security (55%), Anti-Corruption (51%), Power (51%), Economy & Jobs (50%) and Education (45%).
Anticorruption war remains popular, but concerns grow over abuse of rule of law
Support for the anti-corruption war dropped from about 76% in the January poll, to just under 45% in this poll. We also saw an increase in the number of Nigerians that are critical of the way the anti-corruption war is being prosecuted. More Nigerians indicated that the anti-corruption war targets the president’s political opponents (34.4% in February vs 15.5% in January) and opposition PDP members (33.1% in February vs 16.8% in January).
Those expressing concern about the potential for abuse of the rule of law in the prosecution of corruption cases increased from 21.5% in the January poll to 35.3% in February. It is not clear why this shift in the support for the anticorruption war has occurred. Future polls will include questions aimed at better understanding the basis for this shift.
Anticorruption and Security remain bright spots; Nigerians score government low on economy, housing, healthcare, education and power.
The government received low ratings from majority of respondents in six of the nine areas surveyed. The worst ranked areas were Housing (74%), Economy & Jobs (73%), Healthcare (62%), Transportation (62%), Power (59%) and Education (58%).
Combining “High” and “Medium” ratings, the three highest ranked areas are Anticorruption (75%), Security (70%) and Availability of Petroleum Products (60%).
Majority of Nigerians are against devaluation of the Naira
A majority of Nigerians (62.6%) indicated opposition to the devaluation of the Naira. While this position is popular, most economists have indicated that the Buhari’ government’s defense of the Naira is not sustainable in the long run given the lack of sufficient reserves to offset the dollar deficit that has led to downward pressures on the value of the Naira.
Majority shift blame on Economy to Buhari government – reversing earlier trends that laid responsibility on the Jonathan government
For the first time since the Buhari presidency, more Nigerians held the current government responsible for the current state of the Nigerian economy. In the February poll, 35% of Nigerians indicated that the Buhari government was “completely to blame” for the state of the Nigerian economy (versus 14% in the January poll), compared to 30% who indicated the past government of Goodluck Jonathan was to blame (compared to 59% in the January poll).
This seismic shift in responsibility for the economy to the Buhari administration marks a major change in attitudes by the Nigerian people. President Buhari made more economic policy statements in the month of February than at any other time in his administration, which clearly signaled to the Nigerian people that his government’s policy choices are directly responsible for their economic realities.
Majority are troubled by the economy, optimism about the future drops
Majority of Nigerians (55.3%) expressed concerns about the economy – an increase from the January poll (37.6%). On every metric measured, Nigerians were generally more negative about their current and future economic prospects. Optimism about the economy dropped from 45.2% in the January poll to 30.3% in February. Positive feelings about the future, dropped from 51.1% to 35.8%.
The percentage of respondents indicating that they saw encouraging signs for jobs and employment dropped from 33.6% to 20.6%. The percentage of respondents indicating that they saw no signs that anything was being done by the Buhari government to create jobs, increased from 18.7% to 36%.
Source: Premium Times
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