Goodluck Jonathan's Latest Approval Ratings Published

The government is currently dealing with critical security problems. It is, at the same time, striving to win the support of the political elite. It is also facing strong opposition from the new coalition party, the All Progressives Congress (APC). Meanwhile, public opinion polls have been giving indications about the level of popularity of the president and his administration.

According to the NOI Polls, about 4 out of 10 Nigerians (44 percent) approve of the president's performance in the month of June. However, a look at the results for the polls of the last six months, beginning in January, implies that the president's performance rating has declined by 6 percent. The average rating for the president's cabinet during the six-month period was about 47 percent as well.

The performance rating for President Jonathan in the polls peaked in February at 54 percent when many Nigerians were happy about Nigeria's victory at the Africa Cup of Nations, but it lowered the most in April at 42 percent when most respondents to the poll were dissatisfied with the electricity supply to their households, which was the least adequate in the six months leading up to that time. The way the rating sway in these polls hint that even issues the president is not directly responsible for significantly affect public opinion about his government.

As it might be expected, respondents from different geo-political regions in the country differed in their evaluation of the president in the NOI Polls. Respondents from the south-south area gave the most approval; 6 out of every 10 respondents from the south-south said they approved of the president's performance. 5 out of every 10 respondents from the south-east said they approved of the president's performance. However, the south-west and north-east zones had the highest proportion of respondents that disapproved of the president's performance, with 35 percent and 34 percent respectively.

In the previous six months, the percentage of respondents who said they were indifferent about the president's performance increased steadily to 31 percent in May. Remarkably, the north-east and north-west zones had the highest proportions of indifferent respondents at 37 percent. This might mean that more Nigerians are becoming politically apathetic and less enthusiastic about the political system.

The overall implications of the findings from the NOI polls are numerous. One is that President Jonathan and his team need to intensify efforts to improve security, the economy, infrastructure and other important details in a way that will benefit the majority of Nigerians to a more substantial degree. This is a way the president and his team can gain more public approval and increase their chances of a re-election in the next elections.

With findings from the NOI polls also corroborating the perception that the president's popularity might be falling, particularly in the north and the south-west, the situation might really complicate the re-election prospects of the president, as developing political circumstances appear to be swinging things toward the emergence of a president who is not from the south-south in 2015.

Finally, ahead of the 2015 elections, government has to deal with the growing political apathy that the NOI polls suggest. If people are not interested in the political system, it is more likely that they will not vote. There was this sort of apathy in 2011 where only a minor amount of those within voting age registered to vote in the elections and only 35 percent of those who registered actually voted, according to INEC. So the government needs to get people to be more interested in the political system, because this is necessary for Nigeria's democracy to develop and for the people to have a more representative government at the federal, state, and local level.



Naij