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36 BUSINESS DAY Wednesday 22 August 2018 Opinion Who is scared of public opinion... Continued from back page for a poll or survey? As far as social research is concerned, it is simply impracticable to have access to the entire 180 million Nigerians, unless you’re on a mission to conduct a census. Census studies don’t come cheap. Nigeria’s last census was conducted in 2006, and ought to be repeated every 10 years; however, due to financial constraints the country missed its 2016 census target and is still shopping for funds to conduct a fresh census. Notwithstanding, if the total population isn’t accessible, then we can rely on a research population. A research population is a welldefined collection of individuals or objects that have similar characteristics to the universe (total population), from which samples can be drawn for a poll. The next issue is then how the samples are drawn. Samples have to be selected randomly from the population. In other words, samples should be selected in such a way that every individual or object within the research population has an equal opportunity of being selected. This is called the principle of randomization. The concept of sampling As a pollster, one question I typically get asked borders on the issue of sample size – how can a mere 1,000 or 5,000 sample size poll tell us what over 180 million Nigerians are thinking on a particular issue? My constant response to those who ask is simple – it isn’t about the size of the sample, but the selection of the sample. As we often quip in polling parlance, when you fall ill and visit the hospital, the lab scientist doesn’t need to draw out your entire blood to check what’s wrong with you. He simply takes a tiny little blood sample for the test. This is the exact principle applied in public opinion polling. We mustn’t sample 1 Million Nigerians to know what Nigerians think on any matter. This concept has long been established in social sciences. In 1936, it was Gallup who demystified polling and dealt a major upset on the US presidential election prediction of Literary Digest. The magazine had sent out over 2 million dummy ballots from vehicle registration database and telephone directories, at considerable time and cost, in order to predict the election result. Gallup, on the other hand, used a sample of only 5,000 to predict that Roosevelt would take the lead in at least 40 states and carry the popular vote by 56 percent to 44 percent margin. Needless to say, it was a humiliating upset for Literary Digest, as Gallup succeeded in establishing that as far as survey sample size is concerned, more isn’t always better. Therefore, a scientifically selected sample of the general population was not only much cheaper and easier to handle, it would produce more accurate results. Good vs bad polls Without sounding academic, there are certain features that ought to be reported in poll reports to be ticked as good. Conversely, where they do not exist, the findings of such polls can simply be considered as bad polls. Organizations like American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) and the National Council for Public Polls (NCPP) have provided certain standards of disclosure to guide polling firms. While journalists and poll consumers may not be able to tell or assess the quality control criteria adopted on the poll; it is expected that good polls should provide information regarding:(1) Sampling (from what population was the sample selected?was data collected using a random or non-random sample? How many interviews were completed?), (2) Data collection (how was data collected? Was data collected using face-toface, telephone, web-based or SMS technique? (3)Question wording (were questions worded in a clear and neutral manner?), (4) Fielding dates (what were the specific dates of data collection?), and (5) Response rate (some sense of how many people were contacted and how many responded is always useful). I find most poll consumers are unaware of these features,consequently poll results and reports are simply interpreted based on the reader’s premonition and worldview. In Nigeria for instance, politicians are quick to celebrate polls that seem to be in line with their predisposition, and shoot down polls that do not conform. They are partly responsible for the proliferation of fake or bad polls, which seek to support their political leanings. Interestingly, there’s usually Remaking the university tradition: The town and gown... a seasonal upsurge in opinion polling activities and report released during an election year; and as we build up to 2019 elections there would be many fly-by-night pollsters on the loose. The questions for discerning consumers of opinion poll reports should be – where have these pollsters been before now? Should we assume they are new or budding polling firms? And if they are, great! But would they continue their polling services after elections have come and gone? So, when next youfind yourself consuming the report from a public opinion poll, just before you hail it or shoot it down, depending on your socio-political leaning, be sure to spend a few more minutes to ascertain how it was conducted using some of the tips discussed above. That way, you would be better armed to judge for yourself if the poll should be given some attention or simply discarded as a mere academic exercise. Continued from back page the Universities of Ibadan and Ife, and the world class scholarship of intellectuals like Professors Biobaku, Aboyade, Aluko, Mabogunje, and others, into a regular Regional Economic Planning Advisory Committee (the A Club) and an Administrative Research Group. These two groups contained intellectually sound scholars and administratively experienced public officers whose sole responsibility was to dedicate time to analytic thinking and reflection on critical issues agitating the civil service at any given time. It would be difficult to convince any serious students of administrative history in Nigeria that the Awolowo-Adebo model that led to the transformation of the old Western region did not owe a significant debt to the sound insights Adebo was able to generate about the best administrative scenarios that ought to lead from policy conception to policy implementation for the government. And so for a long time, the big question for me has remained: If the town and gown strategy could work for the civil service, why not the university as an institutional platform for converting ideas, insights, discourses, debates, ideologies and paradigms into concrete development scenarios and alternatives from which the Nigerian government could choose? The town and gown collaboration is an idea that is too obvious to be called a truly revolutionary strategy. In other words, it is an idea that has been around for a long time now. It is one of the significant traditions around which Western universities are built. The truly astounding issue is that we have neglected its fundamental significance for far too long. And so we return to the idea of neighbourhood raised by Alice Waters. A university is sited in a specific context. And its relevance is determined by that context, and the university’s relationship with it. The first challenge therefore is how is the university situated, and what are the dynamics of its situatedness. If, for instance, a university, like the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria is situated in the context of desertification, monarchical aristocracy and religious fundamentalism in the North, what are the expectations of the university’s situatedness? If another university like the Imo State University is grounded in a context of ecological degradation, what are we to expect from it? The neighbourhood of the university however goes beyond the dynamics of where it is situated. In a fundamental sense, it calls on the significant elements of the town to participate in its reflections on the state of affairs of the neighbourhood. It is a measure of arrogance that makes a university thinks that it has sufficient capacity to impose its thoughts and paradigms on the society without a corresponding collaboration with that society. The town and gown initiative ensures that the university draws on professional and scholarly elements to buttress its relevance towards the society. The university, in other words, engages with the society by inviting the society to engage with it. The city and the town have their own logic and rationality. The university has its own modus operandi. The critical point is to look for a mutual point of synergy. And that point is provided by what we can call the relevance factor. For a university to become a relevant sociopolitical institution, it must necessarily draw into itself thoughts, alternatives and contrary ideas that have the capacity to enliven and further reflections about the state of development in Nigeria. It must draw non-academic individuals, civil society elements, industries, organizations, and other sundry forces and counterforces. The cogent premise is that Nigeria’s postcolonial development impasse is too fundamental to be left to the university and its scholars and academics all alone. All hands must be on deck. And the university constitutes the best platform to host ongoing conversations and discourses that have the potentials of speaking solutions and directions to the government. It is precisely in this sense that I conceive my appointment as a professor of public administration even if it were merited on the strength of contributions to scholarship. The town and gown initiative for me is a whole complex dynamics of give and take. It is both side of the conversation immediately understanding its own limitations and its comparative advantages. In my own specific instance, I see the practice of public administration in Nigeria as having a lot to say to the study of administration which the university is a custodian. And someone like me who has spent about thirty years immersed in the intricacies of bureaucratic operations also have a lot to learn from the many theoretical frameworks of public administration intellectuals. And this is notwithstanding all the books I have published as an administration scholar. The town and gown paradigm pushes theory and practice to the boundary of logical collaboration. It is simply a way of saying theory without practice is blind while practice without theory is lame. A theory, says Nehru, must be tempered with reality. That is a huge responsibility for the university. And a good way to temper theory is to facilitate an active and proactive town and gown tradition that will constantly make the university a center of combustible research and development dynamics around which can emerge a huge intellectual industry that commands the attention of the Nigerian government. This is the core of the real challenge that confronts my professorship at the Lead City University—to complement the University’s tradition of town and gown conversation by facilitating a genuine deepening that brings in many more like me. Leonardo da Vinci once remarked: “He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast.” I hope that with my appointment, I will be at the forefront of the consolidation of this tradition that I hope will not only involve the Lead City University and the Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy, but will also increasingly draw other significant institutions into its fold.
Wednesday 22 August 2018 C002D5556 BUSINESS DAY 37 News Extra BMO tackles Saraki on election budget President Muhammadu Buhari could not have submitted Budget for the 2019 elections earlier than he did, because of special circumstances surrounding the request, the Buhari Media Organszation (BMO) has said. The group said that the President could not be expected to make provision for a 2019 Budget item in the 2018 Proposal which he actually submitted to the National Assembly in 2017. BMO issued the statement while reacting to Senate President Bukola Saraki’s claim that the budget request for the 2019 elections was submitted to the National Assembly late. Speaking through his online media aide, Saraki had alleged that the Executive was tardy in the submission of the request and that the request should have been submitted along with the 2018 Buhari Appropriation Bill. The group, in a statement jointly signed by its Chairman, Niyi Akinsiju and Secretary, Cassidy Madueke, reminded Saraki that the Budget submitted in 2017 was for the 2018 fiscal year. “Even that was not approved by the NASS until 6 months after. In any case, INEC would have needed time to prepare for its list of election expenses for 2019. Some key factors would need to be considered; such as the actual number of elections to be held in that year, the number of registered voters, the number of political parties to participate, and security assessments for the elections depending on how politicians have heated up the polity . All these information would be needed before INEC could prepare a budget of expenses for a 2019 elections and that certainly could not have accompanied the 2018 Budget proposal submitted in 2017”. BMO said that President Buhari does not believe in voodoo arrangements and would always work with facts and verified figures. “Besides”, said the group, “it is standard practice globally for Executive branch of government to submit for virement or supplementary budget where it finds that it has to spend money on items not captured in its current budget”. The group asserted that “what we’re seeing is a parliament using its constitutional powers to politicise a very normal process of seeking approval by the executive, all in an attempt to misinform the public and whip up sympathy for its inability to work in the common interest of the people; all because of their own personal reasons and the fear of change of their own leadership”. 2019: I want to correct bad representation in my constituency, says Onyenkwere Chima Uzoma Onyekwere, a House of Representatives aspirant for Ikwuano Umuahia Federal Constituency Abia State on the platform of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), has said that if voted into power in 2019, his agenda would be in the areas of health, education/inservice training, road infrastructure, empowerment of artisans, among other incentives. Onyekwere, while briefing select newsmen on his intention to run under APGA, described the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), particularly Abia State chapter, as a party run by a cartel. The aspirant, who is an IT guru and proprietor of Linkserve, described this scenario as sad and not political, and accused all state governors of PDP of high-jacking the party machinery at their respective states, hence, the choice of some of them to try to correct issues through APGA. “The governors control the party in their states as they appoint the chairmen of the party in their states who are not elected and the President at the centre appoints the national chairman of the party. That is not politics and it is sad,” he said. According to him, “APGA is the only party that has a reflection of what a party should look like and that is why we came to APGA. The party does extremely well as a political party and giving back to the party true dividend of democracy and is a model party with room for improvement. “In Abia State, the party is very strong and people from south east have identified themselves with the party as a leading party and is formidable in Abia”. He posited that most politicians in the state were loved not because of what they have done, but because of being in political positions for a long time.” Onyenkwere assured that he has all it takes to run for the constituency seat while advising Abians to “make sure your PVC is intact. Everybody’s vote will count and that is why people are buying others’ PVC now. If your votes will not count, people will not be investing money to buy the PVCs. Your PVC will help you enthrone a proper government that can help you earn in four years more than what they will buy your PVC with.” Kwara Speaker calls for prayers ahead 2019 polls SIKIRAT SHEHU, Ilorin Speaker, Kwara State House of Assembly, Ali Ahmad has felicitated with Muslims across the world for the celebration of Eid-el-Kabir, charging them to use the festivity to pray for peace and tranquility in the country ahead the forthcoming 2019 general election. Ahmad, in a congratulatory message to Muslims issued by his Special Assistant on Media, Shuaib Abdulkadir, said the conduct of 2019 polls would further prove to the world how the nation’s nascent democracy has developed. He noted that series of events happening in all the nooks and crannies of the country are testament to the fact that the elections could be threatened if adequate measures are not put in place. The Speaker, therefore, enjoined Nigerians, especially Muslims to use the period to embrace the virtues of love and sacrifice for the unity and development of the country. The lawmaker noted that Eid-el- Adha is very significant to Muslim faithful owing to the unforgettable and memorable events that led to the celebration as well as its countless spiritual blessings. He tasked Muslims to celebrate with modesty and offer ceaseless prayers for the country to surmount various challenges being encountered in all sectors. The Speaker also congratulated the Emir of Ilorin and Chairman, Council of Traditional Rulers, Kwara State, His Royal Highness, Ibrahim Sulu Gambari as well as the Islamic Scholars, praying that they witness many Eid- el- Kabir with good health and sound mind. 2019: Widows endorse Ayade for second term in C’River MIKE ABANG, Calabar Ahead of the 2019 general election, widows numbering over 10,000 across the Southern Senatorial District of Cross River State have pledged to ensure that Governor Ben Ayade is returned in 2019. The widows, who came under the aegis of Southern Senatorial District Widows Association, converged on the premises of the Ministry of Women Affairs to express solidarity with the governor’s ambition. They sang songs praising Ayade for identifying with their plight. Coordinator of the group, Madam Grace Efiwat, in her remarks, commended the governor for “his love for widows” adding “this is the first time in the history of our state for government to create a department called Department of Widows Affairs with a personal assistant to advise and recommend to government on how to help solve widows’ many challenges. To Ayade, we say, carry go our digital governor” Efiwat said her group was particularly grateful to Ayade for making it possible for a widow, in the person of Abbey Ukpikpen, wife of the late Cross River State House of Assembly member, Stephen Ukpukpen, to emerge victorious in the just concluded by-election for Obudu State Constituency. Addressing the widows, Commissioner for Women Affairs, Stella Odey, commended them for their resolve to stand with the governor in 2019, saying the determination to endorse him was to reciprocate Ayade’s fatherly disposition of ensuring that widows’ condition of living were enhanced. “To prove that His Excellency has special place in his heart for widows, he established the Garment Factory of which more than 70 percent of workers there are widows so as to ameliorate the suffering of being left behind by a loving spouse. Challenge me and I will present facts to the world - Emmanuel dares Akpabio ANIEFIOK UDONQUAK, Uyo Akwa Ibom State Governor Udom Emmanuel has threatened to present to the world facts about former Governor Godswill Akpabio’s administration. Emmanuel, who challenged those speaking ills of him to come up openly, saying he is ready to spend his personal resources to hire international, national and local media to present facts to the world. At the grand endorsement rally in his honour at Onna Sports Stadium, Emmanuel said only such avenue would convince the whole world about who is who in the state. Apparently responding to Akpabio’s alleged attack on him, he said he was ready to spill the beans. “I have heard things, and I want to challenge any who thinks he has the truth to come out, I will use my personal money to hire CNN and other international media, AIT, Channels, NTA and AKBC, let’s present facts to Nigerians, let’s see who would tell the truth and who will also tell a lie”. “However, the issue on ground is Akwa Ibom, it’s about the development of this state, it’s about our children in public schools who are excelling in international competitions, it’s about the price of Udom Emmanuel food items that we have drastically dropped, it’s about the unity of this state which we believe in,” he said. He thanked the people of Eket Senatorial District for the endorsement and assured that the overwhelming encouragements from all parts of the state has indeed boosted his determination, not just to declare but to do more. He said his administration has within the last three years touched areas that were never touched in the state, he enumerated such areas to include; Mbo, Ini and other rural areas of the state which have been visited with dualised roads, improved healthcare facility, power infrastructure, International market and a modern sports facility in Eket. Chairman on the occasion and a former deputy governor Etim Okpoyo said he decided to come back to politics due to convincing evidences of performance by Udom Emmanuel “If I were not convinced, I would not have been here,” he said.
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