By Jude Ndukwe
The much talked about
Presidential Debate scheduled to hold on Saturday, January 19, 2019, at the
Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja, has come and gone but not without its dramas
that have kept Nigerians wondering and talking about so many things including
why the incumbent, President Muhammadu Buhari, shunned the debate, and why his
closest challenger, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, excused himself from it after
realizing that the incumbent was not going to be in attendance.
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| *Atiku and Buhari |
The debate was supposed to be a Presidential
Debate. Such debates world over lose their essence and savour once the
incumbent is not present, and it is unthinkable that the incumbent in the US,
for example, would miss out on such a debate since the debate is designed to
scrutinize the performance of the incumbent/his party and extract commitments
from the contenders.
By Anthony Igiehon
Ahead of the 58th
quadrennial United States presidential election on November 8, 2016, the world
watched with bated breath as the two major candidates in the election,
Republican Candidate Donald Trump and Democratic Candidate Hillary Clinton went
head to head at three separate debates held at New York’s Hofstra University
(September 26, 2016), Washington University in St. Louis (October 9, 2016), and
University of Nevada, Las Vegas (October 19, 2016).
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| *President Buhari |
For the two candidates who met the Commission on Presidential
Debates’ criteria for participation, the debates provided a
much-needed platform to present to the American voting public their plans or
reform proposals on a number of foreign and domestic issues.
