President Muhammadu Buhari’s performance rating has increased by five points, according to a poll conducted by NOIPolls.

Results of the poll which were made public, indicated that the rise was due to the president’s return from medical leave, his Economic Recovery and Growth Plan, and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) policy intervention in the foreign exchange market, among others.

NOIPolls revealed that with the five-point increase, Buhari’s job performance evaluation for the month of March 2017 now stands at 55 per cent in March 2017.

NOIPolls also revealed that the marginal increase was laudable but massive inroads still have to be made in terms of curbing inflation and poverty rates which still remain the highest reason for disapproval of the president’s job performance.

It added that Buhari’s government must focus on adequate implementation of recommendations outlined by the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan to ensure sustainable economic growth and national development.

NOIPolls also said the rise in the president’s job performance rating was seen across the six geo-political zones and the North-east zone with 31 points had the highest proportion of Nigerians in this category.

Findings revealed that the rationale for approval of the president’s job performance was centred around the perceived slight reduction in the prices of goods and services (25 per cent), improved level of security (20 per cent), and slight improvement in the economy (15 per cent), among other reasons.

Conversely, 35 per cent of the respondents, who disapproved of his job performance, reported general hardship and high poverty rate (40 per cent), high cost of goods and services (25 per cent), and worsening state of the economy (15 per cent) as reasons for their disapproval.

These are some of the key findings from the governance poll conducted by NOIPolls in the week which commenced on March 27, 2017.

These results represent the 22nd approval rating in a monthly series of governance polls conducted by NOIPolls to gauge the perceptions of Nigerians regarding the job performance of the president.

According to NOI, the public opinion poll was conducted in the week commencing March 27, 2017. It involved telephone interviews of a random nationwide sample. One thousand randomly selected Nigerian phone owners aged 18 years and above, representing the six geopolitical zones in the country, were interviewed.

“With a sample of this size, we can say with 95 per cent confidence that the results obtained are statistically precise – within a range of plus or minus three per cent,” it said.

NOIPolls is the foremost polling firm for country-specific polling services in West Africa. It conducts periodic opinion polls and studies on various socio-economic and political issues in Nigeria.

Thisday