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At
last,
Jonathan to
participate in Presidential debate
Newsdiaryonline Sat March 19,2011
President Goodluck
Jonathan has accepted
the invitation to participate in a presidential debate
being organized by the
Broadcasting Organization of Nigeria,BON in conjunction with the
Newspaper Proprietors of Nigeria, NPAN.
It is expected that this debate will be broadcast live by
state-owned NTA as private networks like AIT, Channels TV and
many others.
This announcement came a day after president Jonathan failed to
show up for the presidential debate by the independent,
privately owned NN24 tv .The ruling party which was adequately
invited ahead of the NN24
vice presidential and presidential debates
failed to honour the
independent platform with its presence . Concerns have hitherto
been raised about PDP’s disdain for
the debate organized by independent NN24 tv. There were
clear speculations that the president wanted questions to be
made available ahead of time but the organizers rebuffed this
request.
Jonathan is reputed for his occasional gaffes like the
controversy over his reference to
south west leaders
`rascals’ .It is
believed his handlers are trying to avert any further mistakes
by the president .If he appears for the BON debate he will
however be making history because
PDP Presidential
candidates since 1999 have consistently turned down calls to
participate in national debates.
Meanwhile observers at the NN24 debate generally believe that
the ANPP Presidential candidate ,Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau
actually demonstrated a better grasp of issues.A member of the
audience told
newsdiaryonline,despite
Shekarau’s stellar performance,he ``believe all of them (Muhammadu
Buhari,CPC and Nuhu Ribadu,ACN as well )did very well.At least
we have gotten to a stage where issues are being discussed
now’’.
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