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Last week, Nigeria
had its first presidential debate for the 2011 elections – and three of
those who seek to lead it, stood to answer questions sourced from
members of the public across board.

Nigerians – of all
stripes and across demographics – gathered around TV sets across the
country in volumes only seen during perhaps the World Cup and foreign
football leagues, as citizens proved their engagement with this
election cycle. It was the strongest sign yet that this will be an
election like no other.

Citizens might not
be enthused with the political landscape, the candidate options and the
lack of preparedness on the part of our election’s custodians, but they
seem to have accepted the reality that it is better to participate than
to leave participation to those focused on narrow interests.

Ibrahim Shekarau,
Nuhu Ribadu and Muhammadu Buhari dealt with questions about corruption
to accounts of stewardship, power reform, political association,
education and a whole range of issues affecting the Nigerian people.

There is a lot
that will be or has been said of the performance of individual
candidates; however, one thing is clear – the three options for
president are serious-minded aspirants who, at the minimum, seem to
have a genuine engagement with the issues at the hearts of ordinary
Nigerians. Unforgettable for instance, was the performance of the
governor of Kano State, a man hitherto unknown by Nigerians outside his
direct sphere of influence and associated with a political platform
that has been besotted by one crisis after another – but Mr. Shekarau
disproved bookmakers and proved himself at least intellectually and
eloquently capable of fine insight into many of the problems that a
president of this country will need to solve.

While the debate
was largely amiable, the saccharine air of conviviality that coloured
the vice-presidential version was thankfully absent, lending the
atmosphere to an intellectually charged affair where candidates were
able to clearly draw contrasts with their opponents. It will be
difficult to forget Mr. Ribadu’s broadside reminding Nigerians that he
has been in active service for the past 25 years while at least one of
his opponents has been in retirement for the same period, or Mr.
Shekarau’s well-received assertion that bodies like the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission and the Independent Corrupt Practices
Commission are nothing but “glorified police stations”.

The questions were
direct and engaged, and the candidates didn’t flinch. While the
continued absence of Goodluck Jonathan from well-done debate platforms
like this not arranged on his own terms are deplorable, this debate
made it clear to Nigerians that we are, at the very least, spoilt for
choice. Indeed, the president’s presence or absence was irrelevant in
the final analysis. If anything, Mr. Jonathan sidelined himself from
serious-minded consideration by choosing an interview with a musician
best known for lyrics about the female anatomy, to bouncing off ideas
with his contemporaries in this election.

In fact, with his
absence, what became clear is that Nigerians do have options to the
incumbent. The debate was a study in candidates whose strengths are
diverse and whose plans are distinct.

We are proud of
the moderator, Kadaria Ahmed, who shone forth with the fearless,
authoritative and independent journalism that has been our watchword at
NEXT.

In a nation that
desperately needs to build strong democratic institutions – a
functioning legislature, a disciplined executive, a vibrant,
progressive judiciary and an independent press – last Friday was a
giant step in the right direction.

Of course the
choices we will make in this election must go beyond the outcome of one
debate – Nigerians must go beyond Mr. Buhari’s admirable calm, Mr.
Ribadu’s visible passion and Mr. Shekarau’s obvious knowledge, and
examine thoroughly the history, track records, manifestos and
interactions of these candidates. The work of rescuing Nigeria
continues.

As the
elections inch closer, the Senate last week passed a bill that will
eventually give Nigeria one of the strongest anti-tobacco laws on the
continent. Sponsored by Olorunimbe Mamora, a senator (Lagos East) on the
platform of the Action Congress of Nigeria, the bill is called the
Nigerian Tobacco Control Bill.

It’s essential components include:
raising a National Tobacco Control Committee to shape the future of
tobacco control policies and guide implementation; A comprehensive ban
on smoking in public places, and the sale of cigarettes by or to minors;
and detailed specifications on points of sale notice. That is not all,
however. The bill has finally given legal backing to a directive by the
Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) which a few years
ago banned all sorts of advertisement, sponsorship, promotion,
testimonials and brand stretching of tobacco products across the
country.

The bill is also to ensure that health
messages cover 50 per cent of the areas where tobacco products are to be
displayed, while the minister of health is empowered to prescribe
pictures or pictogram and ensure that the law is effectively
implemented. As it is now, the bill has only been passed by the Senate.
It is to be sent to the House of Representatives which will hopefully
pass it before it goes to Goodluck Jonathan for his assent. We at NEXT
do not expect the House to have any fundamental disagreement with the
version that has been passed by the Senate.

The upper house had, in the two years
the bill was with it, ensured that all the stakeholders – civil society
groups, tobacco manufacturers, health experts and the general public –
had their say at the public hearings that preceded the debates and the
passing of the bill. Mainly, the Nigeria Tobacco Control bill
domesticates the World Health Organisation (WHO) initiated Framework
Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). The treaty is the first global
health treaty which is mandatory on all WHO members. Nigeria has signed
and ratified the treaty.

We commend this step by the Senate and
plead with the House not to water down this laudable bill. Passing it
into law could help this set of lawmakers become one of the most
proactive to have passed through the hallowed chambers. It is a great
contribution to public health. We make this appeal because we know that
tobacco products have for several years wreaked havoc on our people.
This is our opportunity to curb this terrible scourge.

A few years ago, some states like Lagos,
Gombe, Kano and Oyo sued some tobacco companies, asking them to pay
billions of naira for the damages their products had caused their
citizens. For instance, Lagos sued for ₦2.7 trillion claiming that
research carried out by its staff in hospitals across the state show
that at least two people die daily owing to tobacco-related diseases;
and that the state had recorded about 20 per cent increase in the
smoking rate over the past two decades with reported cases of 9,527
tobacco-related diseases in government-run hospitals monthly, in one of
Nigeria’s most populous states.

This is a high figure and a high price
to pay for a disease with a cause that is known and preventable. And
that is only for a state that has cared to carry out research on what it
costs it to treat tobacco-related diseases.

We salute the doggedness of Mr. Mamora,
the civil group Environmental Rights Action (ERA), the United States
based Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids (CTFK), the media and other groups
that fought for the enactment of this bill. However, the fight will not
simply be over because the House and the President assented to it.
Implementation of the clauses of the bill must be monitored and adhered
to. Only then would it help our public health and protect us from the
fatal tobacco-related diseases.

It was one of those special days at St. Mary’s Catholic Parish, Trans-Ekulu, Enugu, for many of the local people would at last be admitted into the fold of believers, following their proclamation that they had rejected Satan and his works. Luke Adike, the reverend father who would perform this ritual, had prayed fervently the night before, asking to be used as an instrument for putting the fear of God into the members of his parish. He was particularly worried that many of the parishioners were still trying to put the new Christian wine into the old Igbo cultural calabashes, and wondered how such a practice could enhance their spiritual growth. He knew that the Vatican had, in authorizing the African Rite, allowed the use of local African forms of signification and expression in making God known to the people. The Vatican had reasoned that some ‘inculturation’ – whereby indigenous cultural forms would have an upper hand than the foreign in proclamation of the Good News – would not only be effective but also right and just in making Christianity a global religion. But Father Adike didn’t quite like this idea of localizing Christ, for he felt it would confuse people the more. Anyway, it was within his power as a parish priest to determine how the parishioners interpreted this Africanization of Christianity. He didn’t have to worry much, though, for many of the parishioners were ignorant of this new orientation, and the few educated ones did not seem to bother.

The candidates for baptism lined up in front of the altar, their candles burning confidently just as their hearts glowed with the light of the miracle that would soon happen in their lives. Father Adike was going from one candidate to the other, interviewing them to make sure they had the ‘right’ names ready for their baptism. Once he performed the speech act on behalf of Jesus Christ, calling the candidate by the approved name, that was it: the person was saved! And only European names – or preferably saint names – in his thinking, were good enough as the identities of those coming into the circle where God’s love could reach and bless them. Father Adike was, therefore, annoyed to hear one of the candidates, a 14-year-old boy, respond that the baptismal name he would like to bear was “Chibuikem,” a local name that means “God is my strength”. What would be the evidence that the bearer of such a name was a Christian, the priest wondered. How could a local Igbo name be a ‘Christian’ name? Moreover, was there a “Saint Chibuikem” anywhere in Heaven to be praying for this boy, or that would make sure that the boy’s prayers reached God? Suppressing his growing rage, he simply told the fellow to look for another name and moved to the next candidate.

Other candidates had ‘acceptable’ names such as Mac-Joe, MacDonald, Eliseus, Eubandus, Epaphrastus, Faustinus, Apollonia, Apolonus, Julius, Luciana, Agatha, Thomas, etc, and so Father did not have problems with them. When, in making the final round, he came to Chibuikem and asked him, “What have you now chosen as your baptismal name?” the boy still answered, “Chibuikem”, Father lost his cool and gave the boy what Nigerians usually refer to as a ‘dirty’ slap. It was really a dirty slap; first, because no one in the church expected the priest to slap a boy he was bringing to God Almighty. Second, it was the type that could cause the victim to ‘see’ stars in an instant. Dirty slaps are humiliating. In that very instant that Chibuikem experienced this priestly violence in the presence of other children and other people who had come to witness the baptism, he felt terribly ashamed of himself and wished he hadn’t come to reject Satan and his works. He wished the whole church could disappear and that he were somewhere else doing those things that made a boy happy. Did being a baptized Catholic mean being a victim of this kind of violence? Did it mean not being free to answer a name one could understand, a name in one’s local language?

The priest had given him a special, violent baptism. The flames that flashed across his eyes when the priest slapped him were from the fire of that baptism. “He will baptize you with fire and the Holy Spirit!” Chibuikem simply opened his mouth and the words tumbled out, “Michael, Father.” When the moment came for making Chibuikem a new person, the priest pronounced him “Michael.” But he would always be a different Michael baptized first with a dirty slap.

As the Roman Catholic Pontiff today tries to repair the damage done to the image of the church by some Catholic priests, one hopes that cases like that of the violence against Chibuikem, a candidate for baptism at St. Mary’s Parish, Trans-Ekulu, Enugu, would eventually come to his attention.

Rising prices following years of economic failure, five decades of oppressive one-party rule, an aged first family, an education system producing graduates with few prospects, a rich exile community waiting in the wings.
In this year of revolutions, will Cubans follow the Arab example and demand a better, freer future? Or are they condemned by the inertia bred of socialist egalitarianism and the opiate of Cuba’s wonderful music to remain passive? Or can this Communist regime follow Asian peers such as Vietnam and transform its economy while maintaining its grip on power?
Of course Cuba is sui generis, however some aspects of it may remind one of North Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam or the former Soviet Union as well as of Arab regimes that have failed or are under threat. As the Arabs have shown, stasis can continue for decades and revolt come when it is least expected. A superficial view provides scant hint of impending upheaval here. But there is an expectation that next month’s Communist Party Congress, the first since 1997, will point as to how far it will go in abandoning socialist shibboleths in the search for the economic gains it needs if its power is to survive much beyond the bombastic but genuinely egalitarian era of Fidel Castro and the more pragmatic era of Raul Castro.
Pressure is rising not just among the public but within the 700,000-strong party. How far can the party go in moving to a market economy, opening more space to the private sector and foreign investment, how far in cutting subsidies and welfare? The road to reform means more job cuts, lower food rations, higher prices – more risk of popular resentment.

The regime has a few things going for it. Number one remains U.S. hostility, an embargo which is a mirror image of Cuba’s island redoubt mentality and makes anti-gringoism respectable.

Secondly are its very real, internationally recognized and very popular, achievements in health and education. Thirdly is the lack of high-level corruption. The official cult is of long dead Che Guevara, not Fidel. Leaders lead modest lives, the party has a broad base and no one expects a dynastic succession to the Castros. Less admirably, the population is both aging and falling, so its demographic pressures are the opposite of those in the Arab world. But the time is up for an economic model which, for all the nationalist, self-reliance rhetoric, and tired revolutionary slogans, has always been dependent on foreign subsidy – currently cheap fuel from Venezuela’s Hugo Chà vez. Cuba’s agricultural failings have been remarkable even by Soviet and North Korean standards, and revenue from tourism, remittances and minerals is not only insufficient but has created a divide between those with and without access to foreign currency. Raul Castro has promoted many younger practical military and party types in place of old revolutionaries. The overt military role in the economy is growing.
These new leaders may be the sort who can push toward a Chinese-style semi-privatized economy where market and party share power. Some of them may already be looking to feather their own nests, as counterparts elsewhere have done, as joint ventures with foreign companies seeing Cuba’s vast potential start to blossom.
But this is not a vast China nor even a large mid-sized, self-confident Vietnam. It is a small country next to a giant neighbour which harbours a million people of Cuban origin who mostly do not want the island to evolve into a more successful version of the current system, but want the party to be swept from power and its system as well as personnel replaced.
So to survive, the regime must have economic reform and much more engagement with the outside world without being swamped. It needs foreign money and markets, but it also needs the U.S. embargo as a political crutch.
To survive, too, it may have to give dissidents – those who bravely speak out and decline to be exiled – more space, and so disarm those who view the whole system as an oppressive relic. Raul Castro’s men may be economic pragmatists, but their instincts are naturally authoritarian, and they may find it easier to talk to foreign capitalists than to their own artists and intellectuals.
Cuba looks unlikely to have a counterrevolution in the near future. But change is being forced on the regime, and it will be very difficult for the party to manage. Can Cuba find the space between socialist failure and again becoming an economic colony of the United States, a social democratic mean between one-party oppression and the corruption and violence of pre-Castro Cuba?

New York Times

The Arise Magazine Fashion Week has finally
come and gone. By now, the tents have been packed and everyone is back
on the daily grind. By the time you read this, you’ve all probably
ogled every photo; oohed, aahed and yeuched at the clothes in the best
way we Nigerians know how. So the time has come, as the grumpy cynics
say, to talk of many things. Of timing and pricing. Of attitudes and
beverages, of clapping in the middle of shows, falling models and
leaving before the final bow. The time has come to give a final
briefing. Here’s the thing about Arise Magazine Fashion Week. I can
safely say that we all lusted for you ages before you arrived. Long
before a lot of those models were conceived. The idea of a full weekend
of fashion shows, after parties and general air kissing was probably
the idea of many a fashionista’s castle in the air. By Jove, if you
hadn’t come around this weekend, I’d probably have spent the entire
time indoors watching or waiting to watch a vice presidential debate
with a bag of plantain chips. I don’t mean to exaggerate, but your
fashion week, complete with 51 designers under two roofs is the best
thing that happened to the Lagos fashion scene since shoulder pads were
banished. You’d have noticed our excitement judging by how geared up we
all were. It was one of those few rare opportunities we had to wear
those outfits that were simply too “fashion” to be worn anywhere or
anytime else. So understand that my sage advice on how to improve the
next one and avoid the same mistakes is written with no hard feelings.

The first thing to avoid is the belated ticket price announcement.
Look, I’m not against opportunism. Sure, when you had similar events in
New York and South Africa, tickets were free and invitation only –
given in that extremely elitist way to those selected by your team and
the designers. Still, I get it. Nigerians are more gullible and more
easily convinced to part with cash but would it have killed to announce
it earlier? Would it have been overwhelmingly uncomfortable to announce
it just a week or two before the actual event. To perhaps suggest with
the ambiguity fashion planners are famous for that “Hey, who knows,
this just might not be a free event”?

Some of us need a week’s notice, you know?
To starve and buy nothing while saving up to afford tickets. We
Nigerians are not against the opportunism, merely the strategy that was
used. Speaking of strategies, I’m sure you’ll agree that it wasn’t
really the best idea to have Darey be the host for the awards show. His
crooning voice has brought many females and a few males to their knees
in the past and at your show. I even understand that he can be quite
charming as a person. But did we need someone who repeated several
times how much Aliko Dangote was worth as our fashion spokesperson. I
know fashion enthusiasts are supposedly not the brightest or funniest
stars…but do we have to suffer so much for that? And while we’re
still on the subject of fashionista habits, what happened to the food?
Why was it so absent? Most people, quite understandably, think fashion
folk have little interest in food (beyond avoiding it, that is).
Please. This is probably the biggest myth invented. Fashionistas,
especially those in Lagos are the biggest food enthusiasts I know.
They’ll chomp everything you put in front of them. The fact that there
was no access to food, even for sale, anywhere close to the tents did
not go down well. Anywhere else in the world, people might be more
understanding. In Lagos, not so much. Again, no one is even asking you
to cover the costs. Just make it available. But on a positive one, the
models tripping and falling? Genius. Even, dare I say, more genius than
Tinie Tempah’s performance? How did you come up with that one? Finally
being able to see models fall went a long way in amusing Nigerians.

Oddly enough, it also taught us to admire and respect the resilience
and determination of models. Absolutely brilliant to include that. I
couldn’t have come up with a better plan myself. So well done. And well
done on the production team too. I sit here, writing a few words, as
though I could have done better, when the truth is, I most certainly
couldn’t. Oh, one last thing. You’ll notice, I didn’t talk about the
timing and delays. You’ll notice I didn’t once mention that most of the
press expressed exhaustion at the repetitive delays at the press
accreditation. You’ll also notice I didn’t dwell on designers throwing
strops after waiting four hours to show their collection.

Or the
ungrateful guests who waited even longer. I didn’t mention any of these
things because in the grand scheme of things, the opportunity to get a
fashion week, to admire the craftsmanship of struggling artisans, to
network, to air kiss and to brown-nose with fellow fashionistas far
outweighs any concerns about timing. Naturally, we won’t complain if it
was a little bit more organised. But this is Lagos and complaints about
timing would be like throwing stones in glasshouses. So if any
ungrateful person comes up to you and says more than a few whingey
things about how disorganised the timing was, I advise you to simply
roll your eyes, and like the superior being that you are, shrug and
just say “meh”.

But once again, without you, our weekends would have
just been another Friday night out, Saturday wedding-church, brunch, a
movie and Ice Cream Factory on Sunday. So many thanks for coming and
hopefully, see you next decade.

Though many Nigerians will remember COJA, the 2003 edition of the All African Games, for the cases of mismanagement that ushered in and bade farewell to the games, the event is fresh on my mind for two reasons: firstly, the perfectly done lighting of the games’ torch by a Sango priest. Secondly, the Nigeria Police band could not play the Madagascar national anthem after one of that country’s athletes was decorated with a gold medal. There was a prolonged silence of over three minutes before, out of the blues, a Madagascan in the audience went up to the announcer, collected the public address system and started singing his country’s national anthem.
While screening prospective Nigerian diplomats, the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs discovered that one of the ambassadors designate, Ijeoma Bristol, could not sing the national anthem. Though many of us Nigerians see this as a strong reason to reject Mrs Bristol’s nomination, the leadership of the upper legislative chamber says she will learn about Nigeria in the course of her job.
I am not a student of international relations and diplomacy but the three fundamental national symbols we learnt in social studies way back in primary school are: the national anthem, the national pledge and our coat of arms. None of these has changed in over two decades. Sending such a person as Mrs Bristol to represent a country she knows little or nothing about is like sending an athlete who does not know the rules of the game to represent his country in a relay. He will definitely not know how to change baton with his teammates.
If Mrs. Bristol is indeed a career diplomat and the next in line for the position as some members of the Senate claimed, what will she be telling the world about Nigeria when she is also learning about the country on the job? This explains why the executive arm of government will still have to spend taxpayers’ money to sell Nigeria to countries where we have diplomatic missions. If we have a good number of our diplomats scattered all over the world who do not understand Nigeria, do you still blame investors for not coming to Nigeria even after the rebranding campaign?
The fact that the Senate failed to see anything wrong with a Nigerian diplomat’s inability to sing our country’s national anthem is a confirmation that, to them, the anthem is just like any other song and that it does not matter. A patriotic citizen who does not know his national anthem is akin to a geography student who does not know the four major cardinal points. In some countries, the national anthem is referred to as a hymn. It is glaring that the ‘you are on your own’ syndrome created in the minds of Nigerians as a result of bad governance has made them not to attach any importance to such symbols meant to instil patriotism in us. Just take time to look into the cars of Nigerians and you will see flags of different countries on their dash boards, including flags of even countries like Somalia. Only a handful of cars have Nigerian flags.
To encourage patriotism in Nigerians is to make life worth living for them such that they will out of their own volition answer the clarion call as demanded by the first line of the anthem. In England, their national anthem is called, ‘God Save the Queen’; in the USA, it is the ‘Star Spangled Banner’; it is the same story for other serious countries of the world. What is the name of the Nigerian national anthem? How do you expect people to respect a nameless man? Urgent action must be taken to bring back the lost respect for the national anthem, the national flag and other symbols of nationalism, before our diplomats start flying flags with horizontal greens on the trunk of their cars (after all, it will still be green white green).
For starters, the government must ensure that every person in public office can recite the national anthem. It is disheartening to know that if one is to randomly pick 20 Nigerians in a busy street in any part of the country, probably only about two will be able to recite the anthem without flaws. Now that we are in the era of political debates, I suggest that the moderators of such debates should start by asking the country’s presidential candidates in the April elections to sing the national anthem. We might be shocked by what we will hear.

The recent televised debates, and the general excitement that have accompanied them amidst sections of the Nigerian public, have made me wonder about what it might be like to have a business card that said: ‘political strategist.’ Have we got ‘strategists’ in Nigeria; who do such things as crunch numbers and data, divide up the electorate into ‘catchment areas’, and devise campaign plans to reach all those segments?

Do we have, in the engine rooms of our political parties, people obsessed with polling as a means of understanding the electorate? (In the first place, is polling feasible in the Nigerian system; can it ever be considered credible enough to depend on as a mechanism for electoral planning?) We are witnesses to how the revelation, from INEC, that the largest numbers of voters lie in the north-west and south-west, have shaped the ongoing presidential campaigns. In the absence of such basic statistics, how is a candidate supposed to prioritise and allocate scarce campaign resources?

Or are Nigerian elections meant to be driven solely by the crudeness we have come to associate with them – noisy campaigns full of cursing your opponents and remixing gospel songs; sharing biscuits, cash and bags of rice; and the use of plain old voter intimidation before and during the voting?

One of the big words in the Nigerian political lexicon is “masses” aka “grassroots” (often used in a rather condescending manner). It is common these days for people to speak scornfully of social networking tools, and dismiss them as places where youthful noisemakers gather, oblivious of the fact that the ‘grassroots’ – who supposedly determine election outcomes – are somewhere out there, far away from the Internet.

You can’t but wonder what people mean when they use that term “grassroots” – do they mean the poor, or those living in rural areas, far away from campaign jingles and television debates? Or do they mean the illiterate – with whom Nigeria, Giant of Africa, is richly blessed? If they mean the illiterate – how do you reach that class with ideas originally conceived in English? How many are these “grassroots”, where are they based, what informs the political choices they make? Think of those millions of Nigerians who will vote for a candidate simply because he is their kinsman. Is it possible for an opposition politician to sway their allegiances?

Related to campaign strategising is the task of creating the ideas around which good governance ought to revolve. Watching the NN24 debates, and listening to the pronouncements of the presidential and vice-presidential candidates, I found myself hoping that what they said was actually the product of thoughtful deliberations away from the limelight and bustle of campaign grounds.

I assume that they are all surrounded by teams of technocrats, policy-makers and speechwriters who advise and tutor them; and help them craft coherent and detailed, yet easy to communicate manifestoes.

I would like to believe that behind the public speeches and promises, some level of brainstorming is going on.
We tend to forget that while politics (i.e. the showy, public aspects of it) may often be compelled to revolve around individuals, proper governance itself ought to be about teams and alliances and collaboration.

Behind every (successful) politician should be an assemblage of smart, savvy aides, advising, strategising and evaluating. When we talk of the successes of the Obasanjo years, it is mostly due to the visionary work of a team of brilliant technocrats who drafted and implemented policies in due process, budget management, foreign debt management, anti-corruption work, privatisation, pension reform, etc.

Obasanjo as president was merely the public face – and godfather perhaps – of this team; giving them his blessings as well as the confidence to proceed in the face of opposition from those bent on maintaining status quo.

That is how politics should work – the president or governor as public face; the one on whose table the buck stops, the one whose duty it is to ensure that the government is staffed with the right set of people in the right places, and who gives them all the support they need to achieve.

Presidents and aspiring presidents must be ‘big-picture’ people, curious, eager to learn, able to process large amounts of information, and able to synthesize coherent ideas from complicated and often conflicting pieces of advice. They should be able to assemble and rely on the work of value-adding teams of thinkers and advisers; and confident enough to acknowledge their dependence on those people. With the above in mind, I guess the question we should all be asking ourselves is this: how can we ensure that ideas – and not rigging strategies and empty politicking – rule our politics? Should our elections be elevated into a game of ‘survival of the fittest ideas’; or should we simply forget about that and allow cash and violence and trickery to carry the day – as always?

As it happened with the vice presidential candidates March 12, the first presidential debate held on NN24 television station last Friday was a three-man conversation. Present were the flag bearers of the All Nigeria Peoples Party, Action Congress of Nigeria, and the Congress for Progressive Change, Ibrahim Shekaru, Nuhu Ribadu, and Mohammadu Buhari. Missing in action was the candidate of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, Goodluck Jonathan.

It was a development, which angered Olu, my friend and collaborator on many worthy causes, prompting him to post on his Facebook page that other candidates should boycott subsequent debates involving Mr. Jonathan. In Olu’s view, the president was unnecessarily standoffish, and should be allowed to debate himself.

To the discredit of the PDP, there have been conflicting reasons adduced for why the president and his deputy were unable to honour the NN24 invitations.

They range from the multiplicity of requests from various organisations, to the clash with state duties and previously arranged campaign itinerary, to the mode of invitation, to the format adopted for the debates, and to the need to streamline the requests and prioritise on which best serves the party’s interests.

Rather than honour the request from a satellite station, which is available on the pay TV, DSTV, the PDP has settled for the March 29 debate being organised by the Nigerian Election Debate Organisation, an initiative of the Broadcasting Organisations of Nigeria, the umbrella body sheltering most electronic stations in the country; the Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria, which boasts of leading newspaper titles in the land; the Nigerian Guild of Editors; the Nigeria Union of Journalists; and a handful of civil society groups. All the electronic stations will broadcast the debates live, and the newspapers will give generous coverage on subsequent days. It is an opportunity every serious candidate should seize.

To critics like Olu, the PDP was just inventing excuses to shield its disdain for civilised discourse, citing the examples of Mr. Jonathan’s predecessors in office, Olusegun Obasanjo and Umar Yar’adua, who also shunned such invitations. They charge that the PDP boycotted the NN24 debates because it failed in its bid to have an advanced copy of the questions to be asked, and was uncomfortable with the directing minds behind the initiative.

Does this mean that the debates being organised by BON and NPAN will oblige the PDP with advanced questions? “No,” says Feyi Smith, executive secretary of the NPAN, adding, “our role is to defend the best interests of the industry.” Taiwo Allimi, coordinator of the debates, asserts on phone, “That cannot happen. There is no room for it.” I believe them. My position is that people reserve the right to choose the company they keep. If the PDP, National Conscience Party or any other party are convinced the BON-NPAN initiative offers the broadest platform to reach Nigerians via a televised debate, it is within their right to embrace it. Really, it is about cost and benefit.

What does it cost any party to put aside its own campaign arrangement to embrace one floated from outside? What benefits will accrue from it? How many such requests should a party honour? What is the price the party will pay when it gives the impression it has something to hide? Rather than give conflicting reasons, the PDP, if indeed it has nothing to hide, should have stuck to the cogent reason from the outset that it prefers the BON-NPAN platform as giving it the broadest reach.

The March 29 date signals that the debate proper is about to hold. Eight candidates in two batches of four will participate. All previous ones were dress rehearsals. No presidential debate is complete without the participation of the PDP. Mr. Jonathan, as the PDP flag bearer, has to address the barrage of attacks that has come the way of the party, and project his plans for the country. After all, it is his job that all the 17 other candidates want.

I am not disparaging the NN24 effort. For one, it has provided a window of opportunity to examine the credentials of some aspiring office holders. Subsequent efforts will be measured against the standard it has set. Indeed, in tone, carriage, and substance I found the presidential debate a notch higher than the previous parley involving three vice presidential candidates. The questioning was more vigorous. I found Shekarau, articulate and calm in answering questions.

Ribadu’s presentation was somewhat exuberant and Buhari’s disposition understated. I don’t know why the moderator, Kadaria Ahmed, was made to sit down throughout the debate while the aspirants stood. I preferred the previous arrangement where she stood alongside the vice presidential candidates. It makes for better connection. But I enjoyed her questioning and found the warning bell urging the debaters to round off their submissions an improvement on the previous exercise where they were cut off midstream without notice.

I look forward to more conversations involving candidates for public office, for the useful insight they provide; but caution that articulate public speaking does not necessarily translate into competence or effectiveness.