Job, water and power top the list of priorities, which Nigerians want governments at all levels in the country to focus on in the next 12 months, according to a poll conducted by NOI Polls in conjunction with Gallup.

NOI Polls is the initiative of Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, former Minister of Finance, and currently a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, a pre-eminent think tank in the United States, while Gallup is the world’s most respected polling organistion based in the United States of America.

In the scientific survey, a randomly selected group of Nigerians from different parts of the country were asked questions on contemporary issues, such as, Niger Delta, governance, democracy and national unity, attitude to government institutions, knowledge of HIV/ AIDS and bird flu, among others.

In a presentation in Lagos on Thursday, a manager in the Gallup, Dr. Robert D. Tortora, said that the results also showed that, in decreasing order of importance, Nigerians would want government to focus on road system, education, agriculture, healthcare, corruption, violence and rail system.

It also showed that despite the tales of kidnappings and other forms of violence which dominate the news coming out of the Niger Delta, Nigerians were overwhelmingly sympathetic to the cause of the region.

Not less than 92 per cent of the respondents, according to the polls, said that government was not doing enough for the region.

“That suggests that the image of the region is not defined by the gun-totting militants but rather by the pervasive neglect and deprivation they are going through in the midst of the petroleum wealth in their land,” NOI Polls said in a statement made available to journalists during the presentation.

The survey on attitude to the Niger Delta, like the rest of the poll, was conducted under the supervision of Tortora.

The survey also showed that Nigerians did not believe that the oil firms were doing enough for the Niger Delta.

But the proportion of those dissatisfied with the performance of the oil companies was significantly lower at 42 per cent, which is half of those dissatisfied with government’s performance in the region.

On what the government should do with savings from oil revenue, 90 per cent voted for investment in infrastructure throughout the country; 66 per cent said they should use in the development of the Niger Delta; 60 per cent preferred cash transfers to all Nigerians; while 55 per cent wanted the money saved for the rainy days.

The polls also showed that over 82 per cent of Nigerians still preferred democratic governance to military rule or the rule of religious authorities.

Besides, 74 per cent of Nigerians said they wanted Nigeria to remain as a country.