3 Days to 2019 election, PT’s Hashim remain most popular Presidential candidate online

The weekly social media rating of presidential candidates engagements
on the popular online platform, Facebook, on Tuesday showed that the candidate of Peoples Trust (PT), Mr. Gbenga Hashim is still leading as most popular Presidential candidate online 3 days to the 2019 Presidential election.

The latest data shows that Mr. Hashim leads the incumbent President and All Progressive Congress APC’s Presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari and major opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.

Mr Hashim who first overtook President Buhari and former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar on 10th December 2018 has remained on top with the highest engagements on social media consecutively ever since.

Going by the data on Tuesday, February 12th, 2019 in Abuja, Gbenga-Hashim recorded Facebook engagements in excess of 63,000 this week, while Atiku Abubakar who came behind him, recorded 56,000+.

Candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), President Muhammadu Buhari is far behind with only 6000+ engagements.

The statistics also showed that the Presidential candidate of the Young Progressives Party (YPP), Kingsley Moghalu, the candidate of Alliance for New Nigeria (ANN) ,Fela Durotoye and other others 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 an eight weeks lead over President Buhari and Atiku Abubakar,”he said.