Of town halls and balablu blu blu bulaba

First, it was the town hall meeting organised on November 6, by Arise TV in collaboration with the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), for presidential candidates in Nigeria’s upcoming elections next February. The town hall was to be held in batches and the first in the series was for candidates of the ruling party All Progressives Congress, APC, Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Labour Party, New Nigeria People’s Party, People’s Redemption Party, PRP, etc. Among those who chose to honour that invitation were Rabiu Kwankwaso (NNPP), Kola Abiola, (PRP), and Peter Obi (Labour Party). The PDP candidate, Atiku Abubakar sent his running mate, Ifeanyi Okowa to represent him at a presidential debate. The organisers didn’t help because they allowed the audience to believe that the former vice president was on the way.

On the other hand, Bola Tinubu, the APC presidential candidate refused to attend and didn’t even bother to send his running mate, Kashim Shettima. Which reminds me, that Arise TV town hall meeting wasn’t the first time Tinubu would be missing in action. That would be the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, a conference which took place in Lagos from August 19-26, 2022. Although the venue was not far from Tinubu’s Bourdillon Ikoyi residence, on August 22 when other presidential candidates gave their presentations, Tinubu, the former governor of Lagos, instead sent Shettima, also a former governor (Borno State) who presumably had to come all the way from Borno to Lagos to represent Tinubu who lives in Lagos. Unfortunately, that outing by Shettima was overshadowed by his choice of (comedian) Baba Suwe-like clothes.

Tinubu’s NBA conference no-show was almost immediately followed by his refusal to attend or send a representative to the LCCI (Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry) private sector economic summit. He was slated for October 28 to attend the summit and a golden opportunity to sell his agenda. Even before that date, it was clear that Tinubu, a chartered accountant, and owner of many businesses (known and unknown), wasn’t going to attend. He would go on to organise some version of a business summit. Meanwhile, Atiku Abubakar made his presentation at the LCCI conference (September 13) while Peter Obi did his presentation on Monday, September 19, 2022.  Now, one would’ve expected Tinubu to jump at the opportunity to go address his peers in a state he claims ownership of. Why didn’t he even send his running mate, Shettima? Word on the street is that the rather stern-looking Shettima, still smarting from the roasting he got from his NBA outing, outrightly refused to represent Tinubu at the LCCI conference. Are you noticing a pattern here?

So far, it appears like team Tinubu feels above showing up where Nigerians expect them to. For his Arise TV town hall absence, Team Tinubu put out the laughable excuse that because “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 in some networks, whilst ignoring others.” How does this explain candidate Tinubu’s absence at the NBA and LCCI Conferences? Tinubu himself, who hasn’t held back on telling us he has more important things to do than attend debates where he doesn’t control the narrative, seems to have adopted the Muhammadu Buhari election-winning strategy. Before the 2015 elections, candidate Buhari abandoned all debates and anywhere he could be asked questions. Instead, he went all the way to the UK to speak at the Chatham House.

Evidently, this strategy didn’t stop Buhari from becoming a two-term president. Has Buhari been a good president though? A thousand times NO. But that’s not stopping the ruling party APC for damning all consequences and shoving a Muslim-Muslim ticket down people’s throats. The ruling party is also bent on foisting on Nigeria, a very sick and feeble presidential candidate in the person of Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Let’s not even go into his multiple scandals-from allegations of drug dealing to alleged certificate forgery. You’d think that the APC will be like the Psquare twins who have been begging their fans to forgive them for breaking up and breaking their hearts every chance they get. Eight years of the APC has dug Nigeria deeper into poverty and is now the poverty capital of the world. Should the APC candidate be the one pooh-pooh-in the idea of town halls?

It was Tinubu’s attempt at dismissing town hall meetings that led to one of his many gaffes in his ‘one day, one gaffe’ campaign run. While in Owerri, Imo State, Tinubu trying to justify his refusal to attend town hall debates, said something like: “A town hall, different from balabloo bloo bloo boolaba.” His team tried to pass this off that he was making fun of the word hullabaloo. We can agree that Tinubu may have been trying to say the word hullabaloo, but unsuccessfully. This is not primarily about his gaffes. Sometime soon, I’ll painfully compile those. This is about political candidates refusing to present themselves and be held accountable by Nigerians. If it’s difficult to see them now, is it when they get into power, or after they’ve entered the almighty Aso Villa that Nigerians will have access to them? Even if candidate Tinubu were not a sickly frail man of indeterminate age, nomenclature, and lineage, it would still be frightening for him to be strut around (more like propped around), a lord unto himself.

Perhaps encouraged by Tinubu and their seeming PDAPC alliance, Atiku Abubakar too has now pulled out of ‘The Candidates’, a presidential town hall series organised by Original Daria Media concept, and supported by the MacArthur Foundation, NTA and YouTube. The two-hour live televised programme is hosted by Kadaria Ahmed and is for the presidential and vice-presidential candidates of six political parties. And until Atiku Abubakar pulled out on Tuesday, November 22, 2022, due to “unavoidable conflicts,” other presidential candidates like Peter Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso had already honoured the invitation. No prizes for guessing that Tinubu was a no-show for his supposed November 23rd attendance.

And before you ask: ‘Who debate ‘epp?’ Or: “Na debate we go chop”? Yes, debates are very important. How do you give a job to someone who hasn’t been adequately interviewed and vetted? It’s also true that some people will vote for ethnicity and religion before their own well-being. To these kinds of people, even if candidate Tinubu says ‘bloo bloo bloo…’ to infinity, he’ll still be their choice. However, I make bold to say that there are still a few more people who need debates to make their final choice. I know how debates helped me to abandon then candidate Buhari, who I’d previously voted for, in 2011. It was back when he was still attending debates and he was asked the simple question of why people should vote for him. The man bristled as his body language was shouting: ‘Why do I need to sell myself? Can’t you see that I’m the messiah spoken of?’ It then hit me that the man was behind the times. Or as we say in Pidgin English: “Bus don leave am for bus stop.” Now, we can all see how that has gone.

So, does Nigeria need another Buhari, who’s lord unto himself? If anyone was in doubt Tinubu promised to continue Buhari’s legacy. God forbid a bad thing!