After the debate of governorship candidates in the Edo election on CHANNELS Television, the organisers conducted immediate poll on the performance of the candidates in the Governorship Debate. The result indicated that the candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), incumbent Governor Godwin Obaseki outscored the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Osagie Ize-Iyamu, on the debate on Sunday night. National Daily gathered that the result received from Flash Poller, an international pollster, showed that Obaseki got 76.3 per cent of the positive votes while APC’s Ize-Iyamu scored 23.7 per cent.
it was highlighted that the viewers sampled randomly by Flash Poller, noted that incumbent Governor Obaseki demonstrated firm understanding of development issues, namely; resource mobilisation, partnership with development actors such as the World Bank and his high premium on due process, transparency and the rule of law.
It was further highlighted some participants in the poll linked Obaseki’s outstanding performance in the identified area to his vast experience in the corporate world, his finance background, his eight-year job as head of the Economic Management Team in the state and his four years as governor of the state.
Flash Poller indicated that a respondent who monitored the CHANNELS TV Debate stated: “From Obaseki’s presentation, it is glaring that he understands modern tools of development and governance, such as the effective deployment of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and strategic partnership with the private sector, traditional institution and other development actors.”
On the other divide, it was indicated that Ize-Iyamu got 23.7 per cent votes from his perceived ability to galvanise the political class, given his longer history in partisan politics. The organizers, however, indicated that the viewers surveyed said they wouldn’t know how this affinity with the political class would translate to enhanced socio-economic status for majority of Edo people.
The poll result further showed that the sampled population for the poll scored Obaseki higher than the APC candidate in elocution, presentation, comportment, appreciation of issues, use of rebuttal, use of argument, factuality and comportment, amongst other rubrics, with an average score of 7 to 3, in favour of the PDP candidate.
It was highlighted that Ize-Iyamu lost points when the viewers surveyed expressed higher readiness to entrust the state’s resources in the hands of the PDP candidate, as according to them “Ize-Iyamu failed to acknowledge some achievements of the Obaseki administration, such as education reforms; projects like the Ossiomo Independent Power Plant and the Edo Modular Refinery, which are on ground in the state.”
The respondents were said to have argued: “In a debate of this nature, debaters score higher when they are honest. Ize-Iyamu should have acknowledged those achievements of Obaseki. Failure to do that means he is not truthful and cannot be trusted by viewers. You must be seen to be trustworthy. He was in a hurry to outshine and outdo Obaseki, so he thought debate is about plenty talk to discredit or rubbish your opponent.”
The organizers explained that the debate grading or scoring rubrics used in the survey, include presentation, comportment, appreciation of issues, use of rebuttal, use of argument, factuality, mutual respect, questions for opponent; elocution and use of time.
Flash Polls, according to Barometr.com, “are a type of survey designed to quickly reach a target audience with a time-sensitive goal. They can take on a variety of forms and are popular in many sectors. Although used frequently during political campaigns, flash polls are common across all sectors.
“Most flash polls are based on pre-built templates. This allows them to be deployed rapidly in response to an event or major topic. Due to their limited time-frame, they rely heavily on statistical inference to make up for a limited sample size.”
The population of the surveyed group comprised people located in Edo State and other parts of the world, who watched the CHANNELS TV Governorship Debate, and are very familiar with the issues surrounding the Edo gubernatorial election.