The candidate of Nigeria’s ruling party, APC, Bola Tinubu, may not attend any presidential debates before February’s presidential election, his campaign team said Sunday night.
Mr Tinubu on Sunday shunned the presidential debate organised by Arise Television and a civic group, the latest such miss by the APC candidate.
In his reaction to why Mr Tinubu was absent at Sunday’s event, Festus Keyamo, the spokesperson of the APC’s Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) said Mr Tinubu did not attend to avoid “selective appearance.”
Mr Keyamo, in the Sunday statement, explained that several television stations have indicated interest to host similar events. However, Mr Tinubu has no plan to attend any but prefers to speak to Nigerians directly, he said.
“Firstly, many radio and TV networks in Nigeria have indicated interest to host such debates and out of deference to other TV and radio stations, our candidate will not be making selective appearances on some networks, whilst ignoring others,” he said.
Sunday’s debate, tagged Arise News presidential town hall series, was organized by the Centre for Democracy and Development and Arise Television.
Before Sunday’s miss, Mr Tinubu had avoided similar events by the body of lawyers, NBA, and the body of chartered accountants, ICAN. Mr Tinubu’s running mate, Kashim Shettima, attended the NBA event in his stead but the candidate had no representative in Sunday’s debate.
Although the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar did not attend Sunday’s debate, he was represented by his running mate, Ifeanyi Okowa, who disclosed that the former vice president is out of the country.
Peter Obi of the Labour Party, Kola Abiola of the Peoples Redemption Party, and Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) attended the Sunday event in person.
