Ahead of the February 2023 presidential election, Nigerians have continued to weigh the chances of all the aspirants believed to be the frontrunners for the country’s topmost office.

Presently, Bola Tinubu, the aspirant for the All Progressives Congress (APC), and Atiku Abubakar, aspirant representing the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), appear to be favourites going into the election.

Both parties have in fact produced presidents since Nigeria’s fourth republic began in 1999.

Despite the past successes recorded by both parties, there seems to be growing enthusiasm about the chances of Peter Obi, the Labour Party candidate.

In September, Premise Data, a San Francisco-based data company, sampled 3,967 Nigerians, and concluded that 72 per cent of decided voters were leaning in Obi’s direction, while another 25 per cent were split between Tinubu and Abubakar.

With an estimated population of 218 million, the sample size of less than 0.002 percent pales in comparison.

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Whilst it is difficult to determine the outcome of the election from such surveys and online activities, FIJ has found evidence to show that the vast majority of Nigerians across the 36 states and the FCT have, over the past one year, googled Obi more than any other candidate.

A Google Trends review of the frequency of searches for Obi, Tinubu, Abubakar, Rabiu Kwankwaso; New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) candidate, and Omoyele Sowore; African Action Congress (AAC) candidate, showed that Obi has been the most searched for candidate by Nigerians.

The data also revealed that between October 24, 2021 and October 19, 2022, Obi was the most googled candidate in all of Nigeria’s southwest, southsouth and southwestern regions.

He was also the most googled candidate by Nigerians searching from Abuja, Plateau, Benue, Kogi, Taraba, Kwara, Nasarawa, and Kaduna States.

The second most dominating candidate was Abubakar, who led search results in 10 states. Tinubu led search results in Jigawa and Zamfara, while both Kwankwaso and Sowore generated less interest across the country.

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FIJ learnt that search items linked with Obi indicated that people were looking to find information on Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, his running mate, the Labour Party, and the PDP.

For Tinubu, those looking him up were interested in Kashim Shettima, his running mate, net worth and ‘wives’.

For Atiku Abubakar, the search items Nigerians looked up were Nyesom Wike; Rivers state governor, his tribe, and his relationship with Tinubu.

Kwankwaso’s phone number, Tinubu, Obi and the NNPP were topics of interest to people looking up the NNPP candidate, while Sowore’s net worth was the top search item linked to him.

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FIJ also found out that as of Wednesday, Obi had generated 25.4 million search results, Abubakar 5.6 million results, and Tinubu 5.1 million results.

On the same date, Kwankwaso generated 903,000 search results, while Sowore generated 704,000 results.

While this is no pointer to how Nigerians will vote in the 2023 presidential election, it shows the candidates that Nigerians are curious to know more about in terms of background.