- Bayelsa, Abia, Kogi, others get low performance ratings
- Police is least trusted security outfit
Ndubuisi Francis and Udora Orizu in Abuja
Nigerians have given President Muhammadu Buhari a job performance rating of 52 per cent on governance in the 2017 national poll conducted by NOIPOLLS.
The survey was for the months of April and May 2017.
The national poll is the flagship offering of NOIPolls, the premier public opinion polling institution, which conducts extensive polls reflecting the opinions and attitudes of Nigerians on various sectors, topics and social, economic and political issues.
Unveiling the report at a press conference in Abuja thursday, the chief executive of NOIPOLLS, Dr. Bell Ihua, said the survey showed that Nigerians rated the job performance of Buhari at 52 per cent on governance.
Unsurprisingly, the highest approval rating of 75 per cent was polled from the president’s geopolitical zone–the North-west while his lowest approval of 19 per cent came from the South-east geopolitical zone.
“These regional variations arguably reflect not only the voting patterns during the 2015 presidential election, but also speak to the pattern of agitations and counter-agitations since President Buhari came to power,†the survey noted.
The poll also rated the president on specific sectors on a four-point scale, where 1 stood for poor and 4 stood for excellent.
From the results, the highest average score of 2.3 points each were obtained for the president’s performance on security and agriculture while the worst ratings of 1.8 points each were for his performance on the economy and poverty alleviation & job creation.
Sixty per cent of those polled said they were dissatisfied with the president’s handling of the economy.
The poll also sought the opinion of Nigerians regarding Buhari’s anti-corruption war.
The results showed that while 91 per cent of Nigerians believe corruption is still a major issue in the country, 58 per cent were of the opinion that the president’s anti-corruption war was working, with 42 per cent responding to the contrary.
The job performance of state governors was also assessed by Nigerians.
From the results, as rated by citizens resident in each of the states, the top performing states were Katsina (86 per cent), Sokoto and Kano (with 83 per cent each), Adamawa (82 per cent), Zamfara and Jigawa (80 per cent each), Kebbi (79 per cent), Niger (73 per cent), Yobe (71 per cent) and Anambra (66 per cent).
On the other hand, the ten least performing states were identified as: Bayelsa (12 per cent), Abia (15 per cent), Delta (18 per cent), Imo (19 per cent), Borno (24 per cent), Kaduna (28 per cent), Kogi (30 per cent), Benue (34 per cent), Bauchi (35 per cent) and Kwara (38 per cent).
In terms of institutional effectiveness, Nigerians had the opportunity to assess the performance of 17 public institutions with a regular interface with the populace.
The results revealed that the top five institutions considered effective by Nigerians were the military (72 per cent), Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC 65 per cent), Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC 63 per cent), National Agency for Food and Drug Administration & Control (NAFDAC 61 per cent), and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC 59 per cent).
On security, the poll reported that while 65 per cent of Nigerians feel safe in their localities, 35 per cent do not feel secure.
In line with this perception, about a third of the population (33 per cent) said they were aware of a robbery incident, and 13 per cent said they knew of a kidnapping within their locality in the last 12 months.
On the rating of government’s response to threats of violence in the country, 48 per cent expressed their satisfaction with the response. On the contrary, 50 per cent of Nigerians expressed dissatisfaction with government’s response to threats of insecurity, particularly amongst residents of the South-east (83 per cent) and South-south (79 per cent) geopolitical regions.
Nigerians were also asked to rate their level of trust for organisations involved in providing security.
The results revealed that the military topped the list of such organisations with 77 per cent, followed by vigilante groups and community security (64 per cent). On the other hand, the Nigeria Police were identified as the security institution with the least level of trust with only 35 per cent.
