Shortly after the Vice-presidential debate in December, I noticed a few groups parroting the drivel that President Muhammadu Buhari need not attend the presidential debates because they make no difference to the votes he will get.
While credible research shows that debates do not necessarily change people’s voting decisions, to think that reasoned exchange has no use in a democracy is unrelenting ignorance. Nigerians, like all democracies, need the planned debates. Debates indicate if a candidate is fit and proper for the varied chores of the office sought because its preparation is akin to a marathon. One who represents their thoughts well at a debate is partly ready for office. Candidates for office should know it is not enough for them and their campaign committees to bombard us with online videos and inelegant posters that carry no substance while they dodge hard questions.
This Saturday and next Saturday, two presidential debates will take place, and all Nigerians should take them seriously enough without the sneering cynicism of “who debate ‘epp’?†Expectedly, a lot of Nigerians will tune in to the debates as they are televised expecting fireworks. Alas, it might turn out anticlimactic. Since 1999, Nigeria’s presidential debates have had the troubling history of the leading candidates never facing each other; either, the incumbent or the main challenger runs from the battle. It started with Olusegun Obasanjo fleeing from Olu Falae; Buhari himself fled from Obasanjo in 2003. In 2011, Umaru Yar’Adua was absent, and in 2015, neither Buhari nor incumbent Goodluck Jonathan participated in the debates.
How exciting the 2019 debates will be, depends on Buhari’s appearance at the events because he is the incumbent that other contenders want to unseat. There are strong indications already that Buhari will not appear for the debate and if he will not, Atiku might not want to waste his energy debating those who do not pose much threat to his candidature.
For Buhari to hand over his campaign to someone else to run, there is a possibility he does not have the necessary physical stamina to withstand the rigours of the electioneering. Also, given that elections in Nigeria are not won based on the “work†of winning voters through ideas, but the work of “mobilisation†with dollops of stomach infrastructure and petty cash, he might not be that bothered. Buhari has shown scant regard for strategic symmetrical communication with Nigerians since he became President. Curiously, his popularity has not tanked in his strongholds. Why should he change now?
Another possibility is Buhari sending an emissary (most likely, Yemi Osinbajo, the Vice-President; the Bola Tinubu rumour is just rumour). If he sends Osinbajo or any other APC chieftain, the organisers should refuse to countenance a surrogate so as not to set a precedent where “mercenaries†will stand in for presidential candidates who do not want to swot their homework. If Buhari does not think this debate is worth his time, they should leave his space on the podium blank as a testimony to his legacy as the general who ran away when he had to face a war of ideas with his own peers!
Contemporary media technology has facilitated a more participatory system of democracy where constituents make more significant contribution to the rituals of electioneering. No longer is registering one’s voice in processes like debates an exclusive preserve of select elite shuttered in a room where they come up with soft questions for aspirants. For good or bad, the Internet and its concomitant social media have flattened access to candidates. Even Buhari, the most elusive President in Nigeria’s history, has social media accounts.
In this spirit, I have crafted 12 questions as my contribution to the coming debates. I know the organisers have their own questions already prepared, but I enjoin other Nigerians to send in questions that the debaters might get asked as well. Whether the candidates get to answe
