President Goodluck Jonathan has once again lost to the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress [APC] Muhammadu Buhari, in a tweet poll organised to test the popularity of presidential candidates.
The poll was organised by one of Mr. Jonathan’s aides, Reno Omokri.
Using his Twitter handle, @Renoomokri, Mr. Omokri asked two questions.
“Who will be more tolerant of criticisms? Retweet to choose GEJ. Favourite for Buhari. Answer honestly with the fear of God! #WhyIwillVoteGEJ”.
“Who will respect the rule of law .Retweet to choose GEJ, Favourite for Buhari. Answer honestly, with the fear of God! #WhyIwillVoteGEJ”.
Reno Omokri's tweet pollReno Omokri’s tweet poll
His first question got 18 Retweets and 61 Favourites.
The second, got 43 retweets for President Jonathan and 153 Favourites for Mr. Buhari.
Mr. Omokri stopped the poll after an early lead by the opposition candidate but continued tweeting with his #WhyIwillVoteGEJ hashtag.
He also deleted the tweets.
The poll was the second failed survey conducted by Mr. Omokri to burnish the image of President Jonathan.
In the first poll in October 2014, Mr. Omokri extended the poll duration after it became clear Mr. Buhari was in the lead. He later abruptly terminated the online poll almost immediately President Jonathan overtook Mr. Buhari marginally.
At the end of the poll, the president got 13,111 votes representing 49.3 percent, while Mr. Buhari got 12,875 votes, representing 48.41 percent. The president had less than one percent lead over Mr. Buhari.
Reno Omokri's second tweet pollReno Omokri’s second tweet poll
Earlier, Mr. Buhari led in the polls for three days in what was seen as an embarrassing outcome for the president’s camp.
Insiders said at the time several aides and loyalists of the president were later mobilised extensively to reverse the trend in the last 24 hours.
The October poll was ostensibly to counter a survey conducted by Sahara Reporters, in which Mr. Buhari won.
In his poll, Mr. Omokri asked almost the same questions posed by the news website.