When Tinubu Chose Networking Over Arise Debate

By Kunle Awosiyan

Most adults still have vivid memories of how presidential campaigns went in 1999. Chief Olusegun Obasanjo never showed up for any debate, yet he won.

Events that followed his emergence did not only show how brilliant Obasanjo is, his presidency showed that the former president is an articulate talker with loads of experience. He is a domineering personality and also very quick to anger as shown during his appearance before Justice Oputa.

Obasanjo was not the candidate of the southwest, a region, that believes so much in exhibition of intellectualism, yet he won despite the criticism. We were waiting to see how a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, an economist, Chief Olu Falae would make a mess of a retired general Obasanjo.

Believe me, I derive pleasure from intellectual discourse but I have a different mindset about intellect when it comes to governance. What matters to me now as a Nigeria is about who can put food on the table of Nigerians with less words.

Then Chief Olu Falae was the candidate of most Yorubas. Of course Falae won in the southwest on the platform of the Alliance for Democracy, the numbers could not win him the presidential poll, so he lost.

The question now is how much debates did Dr. Goodluck Jonathan do in 2011 to become Nigerian president? As a matter of fact Jonathan refused to attend presidential debate against Buhari in 2011, yet he won.

How much debates did General Muhammadu Buhari do in 2015 to become Nigerian president? The general challenged Jonathan for a debate on oil subsidy in 2011 but refused to do so in 2019 against Abubakar Atiku, having realised that oil subsidy is real. He has quickly added to his governance experience and will not bother himself with “Turinti”.

What I observe today is that most politicians have since realised that the media south who organise many of these debates are not always objective and they themselves do not have all the correct statistics to probe the candidates.

We will get there one day when public debate will become the yardstick to measure the capacity of any candidate.

A good example of bias statistics is the interview of Ajuri Ngelale by Seun Okinbaloye of the Channels Television. With Ngelale’s submission on Politics Today, I know Okinbaloye will have to dig deeper to get authentic economic reports from the right source.

The debates organisers as observed are good at inviting the supporters of their preferred candidate to form the core of their audience.It is a strategy to influence the direction of traffic mostly on social media platforms to favour their preferred candidate.

As governor of Lagos; Tinubu once embraced this southern critical mass, which today he, like his predecessors had been found to have little impact on the outcome of an election, unlike political networking.

No doubt, debating is good but previous experiences have shown that it is a mere exercise of the brain and public performance rather than an idea to win an election.

Debate has not helped past winners of our presidential elections in this country but serious networking from south to the north and west to the east with power brokers.

Tinubu is not leaving any stone unturned on his journey to networking but he is leaving other candidates to congregate for what I will call political “televangelism” and brain exercise.

Tinubu goes after the minds of those who can convince voters to elect him. He is smarter than those that are seeking after a slip of his tongue at organised debates.

That was why he chose Niger State to meet with farmers, to tell them how he will make things better instead of a television performance that will only attract applause.

Last week, he was at a town hall meeting with business leaders in Lagos. This is how to go, serious networking.