Sowore, Duke should join presidential debate--Ezekwesili

Ezekwesili

Presidential candidate of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria  (ACPN), Dr. Obiageli Ezekwesili, on Thursday urged the Nigerian  Elections Debate Group (NEDG) and the Broadcasting Organisations of 

Nigeria (BON) to include candidates of other political parties in the  presidential debate.

The organisers had announced that only presidential candidates of the  ACPN, Alliance for New Nigeria (ANN), All Progressives Congress (APC),  Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Young Progressives Party (YPP) would  be partaking in the debate.

With this, the presidential candidates expected at the debate are  Ezekwesili, President Muhammadu Buhari, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Prof.  Kingsley Moghalu, Fela Durotoye.

Omoyele Sowore of the African Alliance Congress; Donald Duke of the  Social Democratic Party; Tope Fasua, and a host of others were excluded.

Reacting, Ezekwesili explained that candidates of other political  parties also deserved to be given an opportunity to participate in the  debate.

She noted that allowing more candidates to participate in the debate  would give Nigerians a better understanding of the candidates’  ideologies.

She said, “As a country with a huge contingent of parties fielding  candidates for the election, it does make sense to at least allow more  than five such parties, at least 25 per cent of those candidates, to  participate in the most influential of presidential debates.

“I especially wish to see a candidate like Sowore whose AAP has been  diligent in crisscrossing the universities to awaken our young ones in  ivory towers to engage in our politics. Sowore is doing the country a  great service because we must have that generation of Nigerians fully  understand and embrace Plato’s counsel: ‘Those who think that politics  is beneath them shall be ruled by their inferiors’.

“I also believe that candidates of the All Progressives Grand Alliance,  KOWA Party and the Social Democratic Party should be part of an  additional list of five candidates for the presidential debate of BON,  considering their assiduous efforts to galvanise a base of citizens to  get involved in these crucial polls. I hope earnestly that this will be  considered by the organisers.”

The organisers earlier announced that the Vice Presidential debate will  hold from 7pm at the congress hall of the Transcorp Hilton in Abuja on  Friday, December 14, 2018; while the presidential debate will hold on  Saturday, January 19, 2019.