According Festus Keyamo, a spokesman for the Tinubu/Shettima Presidential Campaign Council, Bola Tinubu and Peter Obi, the presidential candidate for the Labour Party, cannot engage in a debate.
After Obi must have presented his platform and demonstrated his political prowess as a former governor of Anambra State, the All Progressives Congress (APC) would send one of Tinubu’s media aides to engage in a debate with him, Keyamo said.
He stated this while accusing Obi of withholding his manifesto from Nigerians before the general elections of 2023.
To debate with one of Tinubu’s aides, Keyamo said one of the requirements Obi must fulfill is that he should identify his political mentor from the time he was governor till the present.
He declared that the APC would send one of its spokespersons to engage in an open discussion with Obi if the prerequisites were met.
Keyamo said,”They have no manifesto, so what are we debating? What documents are we comparing? He said Nigerians should depend on what is inside his brain, not on any document.
“So, Asiwaju will then be debating with what? Is this campaign a joke to them? Do they think this is a Debating and Dramatic society in school?”
“Before Obi can stand shoulder to shoulder with Asiwaju to debate, he should first release a manifesto for scrutiny; then he should list his tangible achievements as Governor of Anambra State compared to the tangible achievements of Asiwaju as Governor of Lagos State.
“Then he should list those he has mentored in politics from the days of his being governor who is still with him now; then he should tell us any political party he has either formed or partnered to form and which he still belongs to today.
“Then he should list his democratic credentials, that is what he did to contribute to the return to democracy from Military rule and what he has since done, better than Asiwaju, to sustain our democracy”.
“After all these, we shall send them one of our spokespersons to debate with him”.