In what must have come as a shock to even the staunchest APC supporter, the Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (Rtd) has decided to exempt himself from any televised debate between presidential candidates.
In what is shaping up to be Nigeria’s most keenly contested election in recent times, voters have itched to see a match up between the two front runners, President Goodluck Jonathan as well as the APC candidate.
Buhari is coming under criticism for “dodging” the debate and this is despite the fact that his party has come out to claim that his reason for non participation boils down to their distrust of the Nigeria Election Debate Group (NEDG). According to Garba Shehu, the Director of Publicity for the APC Presidential media campaign;
“A salutary inspection of the composition of NEGD brings into focus the Broadcasting Organization of Nigeria (BON), National Television Authority (NTA), Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) and the Africa Independent Television (AIT, owned by a PDP chieftain). And going by the avalanche of inflammatory statements, misinformation and blatant lies being propagated by some of these media against our Party and candidates contrary to the Koffi Annan brokered Abuja Peace Accord, and the failure of these aggressors to desist and apologize, have left the APC Campaign with no option than to steer clear of any premeditated smear campaign that could be inimical to our prospective electoral success.”
The opposition party PDP of course refuted the opposition claims and Reno Omokri took to twitter to slate Buhari and his penchant for avoiding public speeches.
He put this picture on twitter
Doyin Okupe also took to twitter to say; “if apc didn’t withdraw from the debate they would have been stupid. Their candidate has no record of performance. Neither is he educated nor eloquent”