The National Working Committee of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has said it would have been demeaning for its presidential candidate, President Muhammadu Buhari, to stand on the same podium with his main rival in next month general elections, former vice president and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar for a public debate.

The former vice-president who was at the venue of the presidential debate held at Transcorp Hilton hotel, Abuja at the weekend took his exit when there was no signal that President Buhari would show up.

But addressing newsmen yesterday in Abuja, Mallam Lanre Isa-Onilu, National Publicity Secretary of the APC said it would have been an insult for President Buhari to be dragged in a debate with Alhaji Abubakar and the other presidential candidates.

Mallam Onilu declared that “debate may be important to people who are seeking power, not for somebody who has a lot speaking for him already.”

He declared that President Buhari would on his own terms choose the platforms to use to sell his candidacy to Nigerians.

He said: “The president doesn’t have to give any reason at all for not attending that debate. Let me reiterate as I have said earlier that the debate is just one of several platforms available to our candidate to engage with the public. We can’t exhaust all the platforms. So, we pick the platforms that are most impactful and we are the one to determine which platform to use!

“Debate with who? What an insult! For the president to come and debate with who? The debate the president is having is what he did that morning in Niger state. The people of Niger State can look up to a brighter future. The people of this country, everywhere they go can see development, they can see projects going on.

“So, these are the debates that the president is already engaging with the public. So, that particular debate may be important to people who are seeking power, not for somebody who has a lot speaking for him already.

•Sourced from a Tribune report

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