2019 : Olawepo Hashim maintain lead over Buhari and Atiku as most prominent candidate online

70% of voters undecided

The weekly social media rating of presidential candidates’ engagements on the popular platform, Facebook, on Wednesday showed that the candidate of the Peoples Trust (PT), Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim maintained the lead on engagement over APC’s Presidential candidate,Muhammadu Buhari and PDP’s Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.

Olawepo Hashim who overtook President Buhari and Atiku Abubakar on 10th December 2018 has remained on top with the highest engagement on social media for four (4) consecutive weeks.

This showed that Hashim is the most prominent presidential candidate that is being discussed on the social media.

Going by the data released on Wednesday, January 9th, 2019 in Abuja, Olawepo-Hashim recorded Facebook engagements in excess of 17,000 this week, while Atiku Abubakar, who came second, recorded a little over 14,000.

Candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), President Muhammadu Buhari had engagements in excess of 3,000.

The statistics also showed that the Presidential candidate of the Young Progressives Party (YPP), Kingsley Moghalu and the candidate of Alliance for New Nigeria(ANN) ,Fela Durotoye and other presidential candidates were trailing behind .
Data analysts involved in the polling project said that the data on each of the candidates’ were realistic because “Facebook represents the broad spectrum of voters who will vote in the February poll.”

According to them, “increasing engagements imply voters’ growing interest in the candidates while a decreasing result reflects voters’ disenchantment. A static return means a candidate at a crossroads in the campaign.”
The analysts said in their report that Olawepo-Hashim’s growing engagement rating is a measure of voters’ interest in him as a third force alternative.

“He is no longer part of the pack of third party candidates. He has moved ahead to emerge as a real alternative to both Buhari and Atiku. This is a game changer from data perspective,” according to Segun Seriki, the lead analyst for the project.

“The latest data point to a major upset within the struggle for Nigeria’s presidency, we are making the report available to all the major candidates.”

“Our latest data reflect a major upset in the battle for the Presidency. It is no longer a two- horse race. There is now a third force that is overtaking the old alternatives. We are still following the data but for now, Olawepo-Hashim has pulled the impossible to maintain a four weeks lead over President Buhari and Atiku Abubakar,”he said .