Penultimate Saturday’s presidential debate has come and gone but the issue has continued to dominate political discourse in the country. The absence of two major candidates at the debate has made political watchers to be doubtful of the importance of such a debate in determining the outcome of the forthcoming elections.
In 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari, who was the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, won the election despite his refusal to attend the presidential debate organised by the Nigeria Election Debate Group.
With the return of Nigeria to democracy in 1999, there were attempts to organise televised debates for presidential aspirants, at least to provide the platform for the candidates to sell their manifestoes to the electorate. The March 2011 televised presidential debate is one of the major political occurrences in Nigeria’s history. The debate took place twice: March 18, on the Network News 24; and March 29, on the Nigerian Television Authority.
The NN24 debate, which was organised in conjunction with 30 international stations, attracted a large audience that included diplomats and had, as its moderator, Kadaria Ahmed, a journalist with NEXT, a defunct Lagos-based newspaper, and it centered on a number of issues such as power generation, corruption in governance, oil sector and Niger Delta, education and the zoning system in the nation’s polity.
Majority of the electorate are not literate and are not interested in whatever happens at the debate. That is why most presidential candidates speak local language at campaign rallies. They speak ‘pidgin English’ and the language majority of the people can understand. Those absent at the past presidential debates eventually won the election
Political analysts believe that the debate was issue-based and issue-driven, aimed at setting public agenda, which could form the basis of policy formulation and direction of government.
The NN24 debate had in attendance, presidential candidates such as, Chief Dele Momodu of the National Conscience Party, Mr. Nuhu Ribadu of the Action Congress Party of Nigeria, Governor Ibrahim Shekarau of the All Nigeria Peoples Party, Prof. Pat Utomi and Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd) of the Congress for Progressive Change. President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party was conspicuously absent.
The second debate, which took place on March 29, was tagged “the 2011 Presidential Election Debate” and was organised by the Nigeria Election Debate Group. The only participant of this debate was Jonathan.
Although there were many speculations that Jonathan, who was the incumbent president after the demise of the elected president, Late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, deliberately avoided the first debate organised by NN24, many also condemned the second debate, which, they said, could not be regarded as a debate since there was no other person participating for Jonathan to thrash issues with.
Out of the 63 political parties registered by the Independent National Electoral Commission in 2011, a total number of 18 candidates ran for the office of the president in the April 2011 general elections, including those who participated in the March 2011 televised presidential debate . They included the Action Congress of Nigeria – Mallam Nuhu Ribadu; All Nigeria Peoples Party – Ibrahim Shekarau; Congress for Progressive Change – Mohammed Buhari; and Peoples Democratic Party – Jonathan.
The presidential debate became a political tool to interact with the electorate by presidential candidates in the build up to the 1993 presidential election. With two political parties – National Republican Convention and the Social Democratic Party – contending for the highest position in the country, the ground and environment were set for the Nigerian broadcast media to organise the debate, which many political watchers still regard as one of the best incisive and informative debates in the history of the country’s political debates.
The debate then was between late Chief MKO Abiola of the SDP and Alhaji Bashir Tofa of the NRC; and their running mates, Alhaji Baba Gana Kingibe (SDP) and Dr. Sylvester Ugoh (NRC). It was organised into phases. The first phase of the debate was for the pair of the late Chief Abiola of the SDP, a well known philanthropist, against Tofa. The second phase of the debate was for the two running mates – Kingibe (SDP) and Ugoh (NRC) to slug it out.
Political analysts and watchers of political events considered the performance at the debate as the major reason Abiola won the presidential election in what many described as a landslide victory.
The election process, over the years, has been made up of various activities, which include: campaigns, talks, rallies, advertisements and televised debates. One strong argument put forward by analysts in favour of electoral debates is that, the debates can help members of the public to make up their minds by allowing them cut through the superficial front the candidate presents in the campaigns and rallies, which would not afford the electorate the opportunity to question some of the issues raised in their campaign manifestos. Consequently, one may, therefore, assert that presidential debates constitute one of the crucial events in election process.
EFFECT OF BUHARI, ATIKU’S ABSENCE
But the penultimate Saturday’s presidential debate was played down with the absence of two prominent presidential candidates, and many watchers of political events in the country, though condemned their actions, but were of the opinion that performance at such debate did not translate into victory at the poll.
Thus, the three candidates, Kingsley Moghalu (Young Progressive Party), Oby Ezekwesili (Allied Congress Party of Nigeria) and Fela Durotoye (Alliance for New Nigeria), who participated in the debate, despite their eloquence and high performance, were not seen as strong contenders in the February 16 presidential race. In fact, Ezekwezili announced her withdrawal from the race five days after the debate.
Speaking on the development, Senator Shehu Sani lamented the absence of President Buhari and Atiku at the 2019 presidential debate. The senator representing Kaduna Central Senatorial District, said, “It’s unfortunate and ironic that candidates, who flaunt crowds of supporters in hundreds of thousands in open stadia, have fear of a microphone and a few people in a hall.”
Both President Buhari and Atiku have also explained why they failed to attend the debate with President Buhari attributing his absence at the presidential debate to his “hectic schedule”. In his own explanation, Atiku, who showed up at Transcorp Hilton Hotel in Abuja, the venue of the debate, said he decided to pull out because of President Buhari’s
absence.
Though, a poll conducted by Legit.ng on Facebook and Twitter indicates that a good number of Nigerians may not vote for the presidential candidates who failed to show up at the debate. Of the 7,577 Facebook users that participated in the poll, 64 per cent said they would not vote any presidential candidate that was absent from the debate while 36 per cent said they would go ahead to vote a candidate of their choice even if the candidate failed to participate in
the debate.
But Comrade Sola Olawale of the Campaign for Democracy in Ogun State told The Point that the debate, though desirable, was not a decisive factor as far as success at the forthcoming election was
concerned.
“Majority of the electorate are not literate and are not interested in whatever happens at the debate. That is why most presidential candidates speak local language at campaign rallies. They speak ‘pidgin English’ and the language majority of the people can understand. Those absent at the past presidential debates eventually won the election. So, the debate is an academic exercise and, little wonder, Abubakar and Buhari were absent. Whether you like it or not, despite their absence, the two candidates will still come top and they will beat the other three candidates who attended the debate,” Olawale
said.
The Presidential Candidate of the Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party, Mr. Tope Fasua, however, thinks differently, as he told The Point that the debate would influence the decision of the voters in the
elections.
He maintained that the exclusion of some candidates, including himself, from the debate, amounted to rigging the elections before the polling day.
He said, “Because INEC has been part of the rigging of this coming elections, I have put them under notice that the election has already been rigged with public funds. The Nigeria Elections Debate Group is working with the Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria, which comprises of government media houses like Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, Nigeria Television Authority, as well as state government-owned radio and television stations, which means tax payers’ money is involved in BON. “Then, you now use the forum of BON to form NEDG and you exempted some people. You are shutting down the political space when you should be expanding it. Ninety-one parties are there now and you chose five, based on your own random picking.”
“They are now positioning the logo of those parties to be more prominent. It is total fraud; it is rigging. I have written the European Union, the National Democratic Institute, the International Republicans Institute and the British High Commission and everybody that is involved. I have also written the Chairman of INEC,”
Fasua said.
