2019: Challenging Buhari to debate is like a drunk asking for marathon with a sprinter – NDF tells PDP

A pro-Democrat Group, the National Democratic Front has lashed out at
the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, over its insistence that President
Muhammadu Buhari must be available for presidential debate ahead of
the 2019 presidential election.

The group likened the development to a drunk requesting for a marathon
with a sprinter.

NDF said the former ruling party failed presidential debate for 16
years and could not by any means drag Buhari into its level.

Comrade Audu Awulu, National President of the group, while speaking at
a press conference in Abuja, Tuesday insisted that President Buhari
had during his three and half years in office literally debated with
developmental projects and not media debate the opposition was
clamouring for.

According to Awulu, President Buhari has debated with projects,
including those cited in geo-political zones that the PDP neglected in
its wasted years.

"He has debated with the war on graft, which was the largest sector of
the economy under the watch of the PDP, its being dismantled is in
part responsible for the withdrawal symptoms that has left PDP members
and chieftains writhing in agony and having multiple visions," Awulu
said.

The group, therefore, asked the PDP to bury the idea of a presidential
debate with Buhari, whom they said was busy with meaningful projects
that would better the nation.

He said, "The latest of this obsessive request was from PDP's National
Publicity Secretary, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, who challenged President
Buhari to a live debate with PDP's presidential candidate, Alhaji
Atiku Abubakar. We understand that the party wants the focus of the
debate to be on critical sectors in the country.

"The first impression we have of this challenge is that the brains
behind the PDP have a wrong notion of what constitute a debate. Their
understanding of a debate as part of a presidential election is
apparently that of the raucous shouting match they engage in on local
television networks, where the most strident person is adjudged the
winner irrespective of whether the views they hold and expressed
tallied with reality or not.

"In the event that they are not aware, the leaked game plan of the PDP
for de-marketing President Buhari specifically recommended that the
party insist on a presidential debate. Unfortunately, rather than
using the debate to gauge candidates' commitment to moving Nigeria
forward the PDP's objective is to trivializing the debate and use it
to further drive wedges among Nigerians along ethnic, religious and
social strata.

"What the PDP, however, failed to realize is that the debate took
place long ago and it came out the loser. The real live debate began
on May 29, 1999 and the PDP had the chance to be the first speaker;
the PDP had 16 whole years of four tenures to argue its point and
convince Nigerians that it should remain in office for 60 years like
it once hallucinated.

"In those 16 years that the PDP had to speak to Nigerians through
actions it dismally flunked and dashed its own chances. They were 16
years of plundering, divisiveness, privatization of the state for
individual benefits, failure to build institutions and systems while
focusing on creating strong men that were more powerful than the
society, they were 16 years of laying the foundation for the emergence
of Boko Haram, IPOB and other toxic groups that today threaten the
existence of the country.

"President Buhari with the APC have had less than four years of one
tenure to the PDP's 16 years and in that short period had debated
through actions and projects on why Nigerians must never return to the
Egypt of the PDP. In that short period of time we have seen the
economy being diversified even though Atiku's voodoo economists seek
to confuse the issue by misinterpreting the resulting lifestyle
changes to imply economic hardship – the PDP will not accept that the
hardship it refers to is the hand-out from slush money it had gotten
the citizens addicted to hence the anger of those that no longer have
access to free money, those who cherish the joy honest work are full
of praises for the opportunities being created under the present
government.

"President Buhari's debate in four years has seen the activation of
systems that the PDP was too scared to implement in its 16 years
because they know that these are instruments for curbing corruption –
they claim credit for BVN, TSA and other fiscal responsibility tools
that they never had the guts to implement since it would have curbed
their ability to steal from Nigerians."