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Tag: VP debate

  • VP debate: Sowore sues NEDG, BON over exclusion

    The Presidential Candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), Mr Omoyele Sowore on Wednesday filed a suit against the Nigeria Election Debate Group (NEDG).

    Sowore sued the NEDG over the exclusion of his party’s Vice-Presidential Candidate, Mr Rabiu Rufai in the debate which held on Dec. 14.

    The suit, with No. CV/652/2018, was filed by the National Legal Adviser of the party, Mr Inibehe Effiong, in company of its Deputy National Secretary, Mr Joshua Adeoye at the FCT High Court, Maitama.

    Other respondents in the suit are Broadcasting Organisations of Nigeria (BON), BON Chairman and CEO of Channels Television, Mr John Momoh.

    In the suit filed by its legal adviser, the AAC claimed that the exclusion of its vice presidential candidate in the debate was an act of discrimination and malice against the party and its candidates.

    The party is praying the court to declare that the deployment of the state media apparatus by the organisers of the debate to the advantages of the five selected parties who participated in the debate and exclusion of its candidate contravenes Section 100(2) of the Electoral Act 2010.

    The party through its legal adviser was also asking the court in the suit to declare that AAC and Mr Sowore are entitled to equal media time to participate in the January 19, 2019 presidential debate.

    Effiong said that such gesture was necessary for its presidential candidate to propagate the manifesto of the AAC as provided for in Section 100(3) of the Electoral Act as amended and the Nigeria Broadcasting Code (6th Edition, 2016).

    The party through its legal adviser also filed a motion on notice for an order of injunction restraining the NEDG, BON and John Momoh from organising the Jan. 19, 2019 debate without including its presidential candidate.

    The News Agency of Nigeria  reports that several documents, affidavit including nine exhibits were filed to accompany the suit.

    NAN also reports that no date has been fixed for the hearing of the suit.

  • The VP debate

    Last week, Channels Television hosted a debate featuring five candidates running for the office of vice-president in the coming elections in 2019. Although the debate did not involve the frontrunners of the five parties that participated, it showcased the important, but slow, shift in our political space towards more issue-centric electioneering. After that debate, doubts about 2019 were further diminished; it might be another two-horse race after all.

    Prof. Yemi Osinbajo of the All Progressives Congress, APC, and former governor Peter Obi of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, out-performed the other three candidates. Although one cannot tell how much their experience in governance or the stature of their political parties influenced their performance, it was clear that they handled the questions posed to them better. The contribution of the others seemed to lack the depth that a more thorough preparation could have yielded or the soundness that experience may have provided.

    So as not to seem unduly critical of the other candidates, it is necessary to state that the general quality of the debate seemed below par, in comparison with political debates that one has had the opportunity to see in other, more advanced, democracies. It was obvious that it was untested ground in presidential campaigning in Nigeria. However, it is a welcome development, significant in so many ways and deserving of applause nonetheless.

    The real debate appeared to be between the PDP and APC candidates who sparked loud reactions from the live audience, much to the chagrin of the moderator. For all the talk about the PDP and APC being two sides of the same coin, Obi and Osinbajo nearly made one forget the deep (and largely unhealthy) interconnection between the two parties. Obi, being a numbers guy, and former banker, launched into a barrage of figures and statistics every time he was prompted to make a contribution, to show what, in his estimation, was evidence of a failed government. In contrast, Osinbajo, the incumbent VP and legal practitioner, constantly reeled out a list of current projects and programmes with his trademark eloquence, to defend the administration and the direction it was headed.

    Umma Getso, VP candidate for the Young Progressives Party, YPP, gave a mildly coherent performance, with the highest points of her contribution being a proposed N1 trillion venture capital fund for young Nigerians and small scale businesses and the promise of unprecedented female representation in a potential Moghalu/Getso government. Khadijah Abdullahi Iya of the Alliance for New Nigeria, ANN, made a remarkable suggestion about giving local governments far larger power than they currently have through allocating 20% of proceeds from resources within their domain to local government authorities. Ganiyu Galadima of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria, ACPN, was especially vocal in his criticism of the current fuel subsidy regime and the problem of unemployment in the country.

    Gathering the views of the various candidates, it is safe to say that there was agreement on the fact that more and more Nigerians today are in search of jobs or financial intervention for businesses. The argument hovered around what policies can adequately address the development of the economy from what Obi called a “shallow economy”, keeping in mind the problem of infrastructure deficit and widespread unemployment. While Osinbajo expressed confidence in the impact of current programmes, others were unsurprisingly of a different mind. Opinions also differed as to the cause of our current situation.

    Now that we have heard the VP hopefuls say their piece, one hopes that people can draw informed conclusions from the display of the candidates. The choice of a running mate is perhaps the first test of a presidential candidate’s judgement. The frontrunner must begin to show leadership through the way he/she navigates the pressure or influences involved in picking a well grounded running mate. As such, the candidates that stood for the debate last Friday are directly or indirectly representative of the decision making of the frontrunner and the kind of government he/she wishes to run.

    With the above in mind, the impression that the PDP and APC candidates came out on top in the debate should not lead one to a hasty conclusion. However, whatever failures or successes of the VP candidates in the debate, it will undoubtedly affect perceptions about the party candidates as a unit, at least in the mind of discerning Nigerians that pay close attention to detail. There were attempts to play on emotion in that debate, mostly by the weaker performers on the night. In a country where emotions are stirred easily because of our attachment to things other than national unity, there is fear that the implication of the outcome of the debate may be lost on the greater majority in society.

    In pushing for issue-based campaigns, there is need to prepare the electorates for objective consideration of issues, which one imagines will be no mean feat in Nigeria. For instance, one of the more sensitive topics was about fuel subsidies. Prof. Osinbajo rightly said that the question every Nigerian needs to consider is whether they are ready to accept at least a N40 increase in the pump price today. It suggests that to remove subsidy will be to endure higher petrol prices in the short term at least. Many Nigerians want fuel subsidy removed and yet want lower petrol prices today. This desire is based on the impression that “subsidy is a scam”, which was repeated by one candidate on the night. That view is bound to resonate with more people in a country like ours.

    The lack of preparation of some of the candidates perhaps betrayed the irony of their views on one of the very first questions of the debate, which was whether there is truth to the notion that the vice president is merely a place holder for the president. If some of the presidential candidates of the parties that participated had stood in place of their deputies, the debate may have been richer, with more depth. Although some may argue that the reverse may have been the case with some of the other contestants, one may have to suspend those thoughts until the planned presidential debate on January 19 takes place. For the one we have witnessed, there was too much “confidence in the plan of the presidential candidate” and less of outlining those plans. If one did not know better, it would seem like just what a “place holder” vice president would say.

    The current administration has exposed Nigerians to just how important the office of the vice president is, outside the statutorily assigned functions of the office. To agree to a vote in a ticket with a weak number two is unsound reasoning, no matter how gifted the frontrunner may seem. That is why one must laud the organisers of the debate for giving Nigerians an opportunity to meet some of the candidates who may have been unknown to many before the debate. Some have already said that debates do not win elections, but one hopes that they have enough impact on voter decisions in the drive for issues-based politics in Nigeria.

    Relatively unknown candidates stand to gain more through a thorough performance in political debates, especially when televised nationwide as was done last week. As we saw, the familiar faces of Osinbajo and Obi stole the day and the reaction of the crowd showed as much. What this means for the search for a third force is that we may need to wait longer for that dawn to come upon us. It is believed that the candidates for president now have their work cut out for them come January. One solace is that the debates can only get better from here on out, assuming that they become a regular feature in our political space.

  • Osinbajo, Obi trade tackles at VP debate

    In measured tones, All Progressives Congress’ Yemi Osinbajo and Peoples Democratic Party’s Peter Obi tactically turned the vice presidential debate held in Abuja yesterday into a sparring match as they expressed their knowledge of the economy and other national issues.

    During the debate organised by the Nigeria Elections Debate Group (NEDG) and the Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria (BON), Osinbajo utilised his hands-on knowledge and involvement in running the nation’s economy to project a capacity for effective leadership while Obi made generous use of facts and figures.

    The three other Vice presidential candidates at the debate – Young Progressives Party’s Hajia Umma Getso, Alliance for New Nigeria’s Hajia Khadijah Abdullahi-Iya  and Ganiyu Galadima of Allied Congress Party of Nigeria – all strove to communicate their readiness for the responsibilities of a vice president.

    However, during the live television debate, skewed audience cheered and jeered, eliciting threats by the organisers to sanction errant members of the audience.

    The five vice presidential candidates all managed to project the preparedness of their political parties and presidential candidates.

    During the largely economy-focused debate, the five participants proffered solutions for the various social and economic problems bedeviling the nation with one of the high points being the exchange of barbs between Osinbajo and Obi on the issue of petroleum subsidy.

    While Young Progressives Party’s Hajia Umma Getso pointedly noted widespread perception that petroleum subsidy is “a scam”, Osinbajo noted that even advanced economies sustain some forms of subsidy for logical reasons.

    According to Osinbajo, without subsidy, the price of petroleum could go as high as N220, adding that the prevalent fraud in Nigeria’s fuel subsidy system has been effectively curbed as the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation now procures fuel abroad.

    “Today, the NNPC is the sole importer of petroleum, so it is from the balance sheet of the NNPC that the subsidy is being taken.

    “Now, let me say that if today you are to remove subsidy, petrol price could go as high as N220 per litre or higher.

    “There is no country in the world, not even the wealthiest ones, that don’t run some type of subsidy or the other,” Osinbajo stated.

    In his own response, PDP Vice presidential candidate, Peter Obi alleged that the APC administration’s pattern of fighting corruption has cost the nation jobs and economic progress.

    “It is not that you cannot fight corruption, but you can fight it more aggressively while addressing economic issues. For example, in 2015, unemployment was 24 per cent, today, it is 40 per cent.

    “In 2015, we attracted $21bn in Foreign Direct Investment but we attracted only $12bn last year; our GDP was $500bn in 2015 while per capita was $2,500 today it is under $1,900.

    “If you look at our stock market, we have lost over N2tn in one year, so that is not a policy. You’re just fighting corruption, you are not creating jobs.

    “You cannot shut down your shop and be chasing criminals,” he said, eliciting Osinbajo’s response that “if the assault by thieves continues, there may be no shop to look after.”

    Earlier, Obi had criticised the Buhari/Osinbajo administration over petroleum subsidy, waving it off as a subsidization of inefficiency that should be done away with.

    “Why are you actually subsiding? Nigeria has one of the lowest car ownerships in the world; it is 10  per 1,000. So, we have only two million vehicles and you’re paying almost a trillion when you have 87 million people that are poor,” he said.

    As the debate progressed, Nigerians keenly followed online, with some identifying lies and mix-ups in the candidates’ presentations.

    For instance, on Twitter, an activist, Sega L’éveilleur, using the handle @segalink, faulted Osinbajo’s statement that “major cause of poverty is corruption”, noting that while corruption also exists in developed countries, Nigeria is far behind in productivity.

    Another twitter user using the handle @Ayourb criticised PDP’s Peter Obi for lying.

    “Why is Peter Obi a compulsive liar? He just said there are two million vehicles in Nigeria. But according to the NBS (National Bureau of Statistics) data, there are 11 million vehicles in Nigeria,” he stated.

  • 2019: Five candidates partake in VP debate

    Featuring were Ganiyu Galadima of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN); Khadija Abdullahi-Iya of the Alliance for New Nigeria (ANN), and incumbent Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

    The other two were Peter Obi of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Umma Getso of the Young Progressives Party (YPP).

    In his opening statement, Galadima said and urged Nigerians to look at the candidates and their manifestos to make informed choices at the polls.

    Abdullahi-Iya opened with personal background information, including holding a first and masters degree in law from the University of Abuja, and founding a Non-governmental Organisation devoted to women and children.

    The ANN vice presidential flagbearer said she believed all Nigerians should be concerned about the plight of children to secure the country’s future.

    She stated that her decision to run for the office stemmed from her concern about “everyone of the over 2.1 million children in the North-East and IDP camps scattered across Nigeria’’.

    On his part, Osinbajo started by reeling out achievements of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration in the areas of infrastructure, employment, agriculture

    He said the government had embarked on the largest infrastructure project in the country’s history, including railways between Lagos and Kano, Aladja-Warri, and the Lagos-Calabar road.

    The APC candidate said the Buhari administration had a major road project in every state of the federation.

    On agriculture, Osinbajo stated that the government had made giant strides, especially by cutting the nation’s rice import  by 90 per cent.

    He added that the social investment programme of the current administration was possibly the largest in the history of the country, taking N500 billion in every cycle.

    “Under the N-Power scheme, we are employing 500,000 graduates, who are in every single local government of the country.

    “At the same time, we have the homegrown school feeding programme under which 9.2 million children are fed every single day in 26 states of Nigeria,’’ he said.

    On his part, Obi said“Our country today has the highest number of out-of-school children in the world; our HDI (human development index) has dropped from 152 to 157; our global competitive index has dropped from 124 to 127.

    “In terrorism, we have moved from seven to three behind Iran and Afghanistan; our inequality has worsened, our misery index,’’ he said.

    Getso said in her opening statement said she was passionate about girl-child education, adding that she “spent the early years of my adulthood in the development of a common Nigeria’’.

    The YPP vice presidential hopeful said she was a pioneer member and founder of a women multi-purpose cooperative society in Bauchi State that had impacted the lives of a lot of rural women in the state.

    Getso said her presidential candidate, Mr Kingsley Moghalu, was a person with a lot to offer in terms service to the nation.

    “If you compare all the choices we have, you can see that Moghalu is among the best because he has experience in all sectors of the economy,’’ she said.(NAN)