The All Progressives Congress’s presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, has come under fire from the New Nigeria Peoples Party for turning down debate invitations ahead of the 2023 general elections.
The NNPP asserted that Tinubu’s failure to accept the invitations was evidence that he was unqualified to lead Nigeria or that he had no message for Nigerians.
Speaking to journalists on Monday in Abuja, NNPP National Chairman Professor, Rufai Ahmed Alkali, urged the APC presidential candidate to attend debates and speak, even if it wasn’t entirely clear what he was saying people would still learn something from him.
He called on the media to interrogate all the presidential candidates, saying that “the NNPP would continue to engage patriotic individuals and organisations that share our vision and mission to rescue Nigeria and save democracy in the country. For the avoidance of doubt, our Party, the New Nigeria Peoples Party will not in any way be coerced or blackmailed to fulfill somebody’s inordinate ambition to rule Nigeria by all means.”
Recall that Atiku Abubakar, the PDP presidential candidate, Rabiu Musa Kwakwanso, the NNPP candidate, and Peter Obi, the candidate for the Labour Party, all appeared at a town hall meeting on Sunday night in Abuja that was hosted by Arise TV and the Centre for Democracy and Development, in collaboration with Vanguard Newspapers, Premium Times, Daily Trust, the Nigerian Guild of Editors, NGE, and the Nigerian Union of Journalist
Alkali said that the NNPP as the Third Force has finally arrived against the backdrop that Nigerians are tired of excuses and the culture of blame games by the APC, adding, “When media organisations, like what happened yesterday, the 4th of Dec 2022. Apart from Arise TV, the CDD, highly respectable organisation and virtually all the media organisation in the country, so this is an open forum. It’s very clear. So why can’t you go and talk, say something, even if it’s not clear, people will get something out of you.
“But you preferred to jet out of the country. So this is a different issue. This is not the first time, not the second time, it has been like that. You can assume that most of them do not have the power to rule the country. Two, they are also ashamed of what they have done. You can’t call yourself the leader of a party for 8 years and now you want to rule the country, you cannot come and tell Nigerians what you have done during the 8 years. You are the leader of the party because, you have, for the first time, in the history of the country, a President is different, and the leader of the party different.
“Now the person who is invited is person who is the leader of the party, come forward, you say no, he is out of the country. So people are waiting for him, if he doesn’t come for debate, he will come for election.”
