At a presidential debate intended to allow contenders to discuss their ideas for Nigeria, both the Peoples Democratic Party’s Atiku Abubakar and the All Progressives Congress’ Bola Tinubu were absent.
Ifeanyi Okowa, the governor of Delta State, served as Atiku’s running partner.
Only three of the 18 candidates for president of Nigeria, including Peter Obi of the Labour Party, Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party, and Kola Abiola of the Peoples Redemption Party, showed up in person for the debate, dubbed a “presidential town hall” and organized by the Centre for Democracy and Development and Arise Television.
The organizers conducted an online poll in which all 18 political parties were listed alphabetically, and the candidates were chosen based on how well their parties performed.
Ths Director of the CDD, Idayat Hassan, said in a statement that
“the result of this survey informed our decision to invite the highest four scoring parties – LP, APC, PDP and NNPP to the town hall.”