2015 Presidential Election Debate: In whose favour?

NOW that Nigeria’s 2015 presidential election campaign has entered the home stretch, the contest has become a make or break for the parties, with the main contenders  – President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Major General Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) – throwing all into the battle.  

    There seems to be a three-pronged strategy by President Jonathan’s political machine to snatch victory, which ever way:  Railroad General Buhari into a presidential election debate ambush and deliver a devastating knock-out punch that makes Feb. 14 election outcome a foregone conclusion, stampede a judicial political castration and if all else fail, call out the Warlords of the Delta to scare the daylights out of us all.  Now, the Swamp Boys, aka militants, have apparently lost patience (apology to Patience J.) with the legalistic approach and are trying to steal the show  – providing us side attraction with their bombastic boast at Government House in Yenagoa on January 23, 2015 of annulling Nigeria’s nationhood if we the people become such ingrates as not to renew Aso Rock Villa tenancy of the Big Swamp Boy (BSB), given Jonathan’s  ‘great achievements’ in turning the country around.  

    But, really, what yesterday’s ‘gunmen’ were saying is that Nigerians will be committing political suicide to vote out the finger that feeds them  – with Niger Delta’s oil. So, for the Warlords -Forget the vote, it’s the oil, stupid!  And what better excitement than waiting for the premiere showing of the Rumble in the Delta as the young Swamp Turks seek to wrestle down the old warrior, Gen. T.Y. Danjuma in a ‘roforofo’ fight for daring to call for their arrest consequent on their vow to break up the country if Jonathan loses the February 14, 2015 presidential election.  To imagine Government House in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State was the Show Stage with Governor Seriake Dickson as the cheer leader, a Dickson supposedly in a do-or-die duel with the Jonathans, husband and wife, it gets curiouser and curiouser in Swampland.  

    The kingpin Warlord, Government Tompolo) Ekpemupolo, even reiterated the threat on January 30, 2015. But Asari Dokubo, the most voluble, vocally and physically, of the Warlords looks to me as being so over fed with oil money that his ability for fast movement, a survival necessity in war, cannot be guaranteed.  That boy will break the reading on a weight scale!  Well, I am priming myself for ringside seat when the General takes on the Boys.

    The parallel running show is the presidential election debate, which has spawned a debate of its own.  In an election year, several actors muscle in on the action – so enter Nigeria Election Debate Group     (NEDG) chaired by my former boss at the Voice of Nigeria, Aremo Taiwo Alimi, with a reputation of being a Wiz kid – smart guy.  He was chairman of Broadcasting Organizations of Nigeria (BON) for about four years –till 2005 – as VON Director-General and handed the position to his successor at VON, Alhaji Abubakar Jijiwa.  

    In his latest attempt at selling the 2015 presidential election debate to the main opposition candidate, Gen. Buhari, and the All Progressives Congress (APC) Alimi’s savvy seem to be of no avail. The dominance of Federal Government-owned media in BON and the commanding positions being held by officials of these media organizations in BON and the NEDG create a perception of government ‘arrangement’ (apology to Fela Ransome-Kuti) about the debate.   Hence, APC officials apparently see the NEDG as a set-up to trip the opposition. 

    The NEDG has been trying, mightily, to disabuse the minds of APC leaders as to its being fair in the conduct of the debate, but the rather aggressive posture of a combative Femi Fani-Kayode, the director of media and publicity of the Jonathan Presidential Campaign Organization smacks of efforts at blackmailing the APC into participating in the debate. The NEDG put an altruistic face on the debate when it declared in a press statement that the debate is a “unique opportunity provided (the candidates) to engage the citizenry on their plans for leadership of the country”.  

    Murray Levin, a political scientist, debunks that notion about debate, noting that: “The rational candidate makes a strategic decision in terms of political expediency, not civic duty” of educating the electorate.  Although it is political expediency that makes debate attractive for President Jonathan today, Fani-Kayode projects a boycott of the debate by Gen. Buhari as chickening out of a contest, conveniently forgetting that his principal dodged a debate with other contestants in 2011 when he was a clear front runner. This takes us to the posers: What is the electoral value of a presidential election debate?  What is in it for the candidates and the electorate?  

     Studies show that accepting to debate an opponent in a presidential election is a matter of strategic calculation of potential outcomes – the advantage to be derived in terms of vote harvest. The push for debate by NEDG and PDP has apparently been anticipated by a scholar, Evron M. Kirkpatrick, with regard to taking decision to debate or not.  Kirkpatrick in the book: The Past and Future of Presidential Debates, had stated: Media spokesmen typically support debates, and their voices, added to that of a challenger, can create a great deal of pressure on a candidate to meet his opponent in a verbal duel’.  

    To resist such pressure, Robert MacNeil advised that the skillful campaign manager must devise a technique to keep his candidate out of harmful debates without losing face while Murray Levin, author of the book – Kennedy Campaigning: The System and Style, stated that while “it is wise for the candidate who is behind to debate unless he is hopelessly inept, stupid or physically repulsive, it is unwise for the favourite to accept the challenge”.

    In the current circumstances, Gen. Buhari is perceived to have an edge over President Jonathan, which perhaps explains the reluctance of his handlers to agree to the debate. When President Jonathan saw himself in a position of electoral advantage in 2011, he refused to debate his opponents.  

    It is, however, noted that sometimes the pressure could be so intense that a candidate yields to debate, against better judgement, as was the case in the disastrous Ted Kennedy –Ed McCormack senatorial primary debate in Massachusetts, USA, in 1962.  McCormack was demolished by a telegenic Ted in that debate and his campaign organization was to admit later that accepting to debate was “courting a little bit of danger “, but that they didn’t want to create the perception  “of running away” from the debate. It turned out a strategic error of judgement.  

    As pointed out by Levin, a trailing candidate has much to gain and little to lose in election debate confrontation: “It is always possible that a witty remark, a pointed barb, a flurry of statistics or a startling revelation can turn the tide or that the front runner may ‘blow the election’. 

    Apparently, the APC people do not want to ‘blow’ what they see as a chance to clinch the presidency. In three American presidential election debates, style and wittiness, have been a factor in victory:  the Richard Nixon – John Kennedy debate in 1960, which was the first presidential debate ever; the Ronald Reagan –Jimmy Carter debate in 1980 and the John McCain- Barack Obama debate in 2008. 

    Obviously, a younger President Jonathan who seems to have recently become energized on the campaign trail would see in the debate an opportunity to deliver a killer punch. Also, reports that the other nine presidential candidates are aligning with President Jonathan gives the impression of a gang-up against the APC candidate.  There are those who hold that televised debate is more of razzmatazz, lacking substance on issues and should not be allowed to be dominant in elections.  

    The American Political Science Association had declared: “The choice of presidential candidates must not be limited to those who are masters of appearance on television… emphasis must be placed on strengthening methods of campaigning that enable citizens make judgements on other bases”.   Surveys on American presidential debates indicate, “It was the image of the man, not the issues that most impressed viewers”.     

    If APC’s General Muhammadu Buhari maintains his stand not to be stampeded into a presidential debate, and given the reported alliance of other opposition candidates with President Jonathan, the 2015 Presidential Election Debates  – February 3 and 8 – of the Nigeria Election Debate Group may turn out as non events.

• Dr. Bisi Olawunmi, a lecturer, Department of Mass Communication, Bowen University, Iwo, is former Washington Correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria.  He covered the 1980, 1988 American presidential elections and the 1979, 1983 Nigerian presidential elections.