The survey was targeted at Nigerians of voting age. Over 540 responses were received, providing a margin of error of ±4.2% at a 95% confidence level.
In the second month of the Tinubu administration, his approval rating dropped to 35% from 45% in his first month. This was the second poll in GAIN’s (Governance Advancement Initiative for Nigeria) monthly presidential satisfaction and governance survey and was administered from July 29th to August 6th. The monthly GAIN surveys comprehensively track the sentiments of the Nigerian people regarding the initiatives and policies of the Tinubu administration and are intended to provide the unadulterated views of the Nigerian public to their elected officials.
Demographic Information
The survey was targeted at Nigerians of voting age. Over 540 responses were received, providing a margin of error of ±4.2% at a 95% confidence level. 68.5% of respondents indicated that they voted in the 2023 presidential elections. 51.1% indicated that they had no political party affiliations. Respondents were drawn from across all six geopolitical zones, both in terms of their places of origin and their locations of residence.
35% Satisfaction rating for President Tinubu
Respondents were provided with a 5-scale question about their rating of President Tinubu’s first two months in office (Figure 1). They were provided with an option of responses ranging from “Excellent”, “Good”, “Average” to “Poor” and “Very Poor”. Only one of these options could be selected. We have defined “Satisfaction” as being the sum of responses with a clearly positive rating of the President’s performance, drawn from the following options - “Excellent”, “Good” and “Average”.
35% rated the performance of the presidents as satisfactory, with 8% of them rating his performance as “Excellent” (down from 15% the previous month), 11% rating it as “Good” (down from 15% the previous month) and a further 16% rating it as “Average” (slightly up from 15% the previous month).
Figure 1
Mixed Views Emerge on the Administration’s New Policies
Table 1
Respondents were asked to rate five (5) of the most topical policy initiatives of the Tinubu administration and were provided with a 4-scale range of response options (see Table 1). Respondents who selected the “Highly support” and “Support” scales were added up and interpreted as being supportive of the policy in question.
50.3% support Fuel subsidy removal: This was down from 54% of respondents in the first month. 4.5% of respondents indicated that they did not know enough about the policy initiative, a slight tick upward from 4% the previous month.
74% support reforms in the electricity sector: A clear majority of Nigerians (74%) indicated support for the administration’s electricity sector reforms, a significant uptick from the 60% who expressed support in the first month. 16.3% indicated that they did not support this policy, a significant decrease from the 24% of respondents who indicated that they did not support the reforms initiative in the previous month. 9.63% of respondents indicated that they did not know enough about this policy, a slight uptick from 9% in the previous month’s survey.
55% of respondents oppose the new student loan policy: The new student loan policy continues to be the least supported policy initiative of the Tinubu government, with just 37.1% of respondents indicating support. Although this was a slight uptick from the 32% of respondents indicating support in the previous month, this was by far the least supported policy initiative. 55.1% expressed a clear lack of support for the policy, up from 52% in the previous month. Only 7.79% of respondents indicated that they didn’t know enough about the policy, slightly up from 7% in the previous month.
71% support side – by – side circulation of old and new currencies: This monetary policy initiative instituted by the Tinubu administration continues to be popular. 71% of respondents were supportive of the policy, up from 60% in the previous month. The naira redesign policy continued to have the lowest number of respondents indicating they did not know enough about the policy (2.8% currently vs 2% in the previous month) indicating that the level of awareness about this policy and its impact was widespread.
52% support eliminating dual exchange rate: A majority continued to support the removal of the dual exchange rate policy, although the level of support dropped to 51% in this month’s survey versus 60% in the first month. 15.6% of respondents indicated that they were not well informed about the policy (an increase from 8% of respondents in the first month), while 31.7% expressed a lack of support for the policy, a significant increase from 20% previously.
Priorities – Nigerians select Security, Electricity and HealthCare as their top 3 priorities.
Table 2
Respondents were presented with a list of ten (10) national priorities drawn from the APC manifesto as well as policy pronouncements that have been made by the Tinubu Administration (Table 2).
The first priority area was security (73.33%), followed by provision of electricity in second place (52.9%), while Healthcare was ranked third at 63.8%.
Respondents were also allowed to provide their own list of priorities as well as commentary on the listed priority areas. The word cloud (see Figure 2) captures the sentiments expressed by respondents, with the size of words in the cloud, reflecting the number of times those issues were raised.
Figure 2: Word cloud.
Mixed Views about the Economy
Table 3
We provided respondents with five statements expressing various views about the economy and they were required to select one of the options (Table 3). Three (3) of the views expressed positive sentiments, while 2 expressed negative sentiments about the economy and / or government’s plans to address it. Overall, 25.6% of respondents expressed positive sentiments about the economy while 74.4% expressed negative sentiments.
The Tinubu government has a lot of work to do in signaling and clearly communicating its intentions for economic growth and job provision for the Nigerian people.
Ranking Nigerian Institutions – Military topples Presidency as the Most Respected Institution
Table 4
This survey question was intended to determine the views of Nigerians about key national institutions (Table 4). Respondents were provided with ten (10) national institutions that included the Presidency, National Assembly, Military, Police, Judiciary, NNPC, CBN, EFCC and DSS. They were then provided with a 5-scale response set that included options ranging from “Very High”, “High” and “Average”, to “Low” and “Very Low”. Respondents were required to select one of these options for each institution.
We interpreted the sum of “Very High” and “High” ratings as being indicative of the level of respect that respondents had for the institutions that the ratings corresponded to. Using this interpretation, the three most respected Nigerian institutions are the Military (30.3%), Presidency (24%), and DSS (14.8%), while the bottom two are EFCC (9.4%) and NNPC (7.9%).
Sector performance ranking: Petroleum, Power and Security Rank Supreme
Table 5
We ranked satisfaction with the performance of the administration across nine (9) sectors (see Table 5). We defined satisfaction as the addition of the scores on the “High” and “Medium” scale. The highest ranking by respondents was in the area of the “Availability of petroleum products”, with an overall satisfaction rating of 60.8%, followed by “Security” (44.6%) and “Power” (43.8%). The least ranked were transportation, housing and anti-corruption.
94% support demand for higher minimum wage
Figure 3
The support for higher wages continued to be very strong (Figure 3). The levels remained virtually unchanged, holding steady at 94% in favor of the provision of higher wages for workers. This continued to be the largest level of response provided to any question that was posed to respondents. The Tinubu government will be well served to note the massive support that the demand for higher wages has amongst the Nigerian people.
99% of respondents believe the minimum wage should be at least N50,000
We asked respondents for their views on what they believed a fair and sustainable minimum wage value should be. A clear majority of 99% indicated that it should at least be at, or above N50,000 per month. 84% indicated that it should be at least N100,000 per month, 47% indicated that it should be at least N150,000 per month, while 30% indicated that it should be at least N200,000 per month.
We recognize that the interpretation of what a “sustainable” wage would be is an entirely subjective one, given that respondents have no view into the details of what the cost and revenue profiles are for the mostly small and medium enterprises that will bear the lion share of the incremental wage burden associated with any increases to the minimum wage. We wish to note that the labor unions (specifically TUC) have already set N200,000 per month as an aspirational target for the new minimum wage, and this was reflected in our selection of the upper bound for the new minimum wage targets.
Figure 4
79% of respondents do not believe the Tinubu administration is serious about Tackling Corruption
We asked respondents to provide their views on whether they believed the Tinubu administration was serious about tackling corruption (Figure 5). A large majority (79%) indicated they did not believe the Tinubu government was serious about tackling corruption.
Figure 5
89% Do not support the N8,000 palliative.
A large majority of respondents (89%) are opposed to the government’s planned palliative program (Figure 6). We also provided respondents with the option to offer additional details and comments on the topic. The overarching themes addressed in the comments included a) views that the amount was too small and inadequate to meet the basic needs of recipients b) concerns that it would be ineffectively disbursed and that much of the funds would be embezzled and 3) that the program would not be sustained.
Figure 6
58% Expressed disappointment with the Ministerial appointees.
The survey period coincided with the release of the names of ministerial appointees. Respondents were provided with three statements and asked to select the one that best aligned with their views regarding the ministerial list (Figure 7). 12% of respondents were very positive about the list, 30% had no clear views, while a clear majority (58%) expressed disappointment with the composition of the list. We provided respondents with the option of presenting clarifying comments. Most of the comments centered around concerns that many of the appointees were well known political players who had not distinguished themselves in their prior areas of service and some of them were linked with corruption charges. There was a general sentiment that the driving factor for the selection of the appointees was driven more by political expediency than technocratic competency.
Figure 7
Majority of Nigerians do not trust the Tinubu administration to be able to provide solutions to the pains caused by subsidy removal, inflation and foreign exchange rate.
We added a question to the survey regarding whether respondents had confidence that the Tinubu administration could provide long term solutions that will address issues such as the pains of subsidy removal, inflation and foreign exchange rates (Figure 8). 64% of respondents indicated that they were not confident that the government could provide effective long-term solutions to these issues.
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Figure 8
Polling Methodology
GAIN’s monthly poll is intended to gauge public sentiment about key initiatives of Government. This month’s poll tracks the initiatives rolled out in the first 60 days of the Tinubu administration. It is our intention to continue to survey the performance of government at various levels on a regular pace.
We received over 540 responses on an assumed population of 100 million eligible adult respondents, giving a margin of error of 4.2% at a 95% confidence level. All polling was administered via social media platforms, email and cell phones. We have demonstrated through prior polling research that these methods allow for accurate polling in Nigeria.
We believe that growth and development is enhanced in a fact based, data driven environment. Our polling insights are made available freely to citizens and governments. Additional details about the survey can be provided upon request.
Who we are
Governance Advancement Initiative for Nigeria (GAIN) is committed to supporting the development of responsive and responsible governance in Nigeria. Our monthly governance polls are intended to provide the government with feedback on the impact of programs and initiatives while also affording able the citizenry the opportunity to have their say on the performance of those they have elected to govern them. Please send any inquiries or suggestions to [email protected].
Dr Malcolm Fabiyi