Nigeria Health Watch in partnership with NOIPolls has just launched its #Vote4HealthNaija report. In the build-up to the 2019 elections, Nigeria Health Watch has launched a campaign aimed at pushing health up the political agenda. The citizen’s perception survey was conducted in October 2018 to understand the voting priorities of Nigerians.

The results of the survey revealed that 81% of respondents believe health is a very important consideration when deciding whom to vote for, however 44% of respondents stated they were not very confident in the Nigerian health system with 26% stating they were very confident. Looking across geopolitical zones, respondents in the South-West (57%) were the least confident in the Nigerian health system compared to the North West where 36% were very confident in the Nigerian health system.

Political rallies are very popular in Nigeria, however, ‘radio’ was mentioned by 35% of respondents as the most popular source of information about political aspirants, followed by television (26%) and social media (26%). When asked “Which health policy was the most attractive, top responses were 29% mentioning free medical treatment for all and 17% of respondents mentioned free medical care.

The survey was conducted using telephone interviews with a nationwide random sample selection of 1,000 respondents across all the 36 states in Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory, drawn from the NOIPolls Numbers Database which has access to over 70 million numbers.