By Saminu Ibrahim
Senator Abdulfatai Buhari (Oyo North) has said public debates among candidates will bring out hidden talents and deepen the democratic process.
The lawmaker noted that the debate would bring candidates and electorate to a meeting point where they would better understand each other.
Recall, a bill that empowers the Independent National Electoral Commission to organise mandatory election debate for candidates contesting elections scaled second reading in the Senate on Thursday.
The bill which was sponsored by Senator Abdulfatai Buhari representing Oyo North Senatorial district specifically said “candidates contesting elections as President, Vice President, Governors and their deputies”, should be subjected to electoral debate.
Leading the debate on the bill, he argued that the process would strengthen the nation’s democracy like in advanced democracies across the world.
Speaking with newsmen shortly after plenary, Senator Buhari said the debate will fish out the candidates, saying it will let the electorate know certain hidden things in the candidates.
Specifically he observed “One good thing the debate will bring out is the hidden person in you, because the people asking you question are unbiased, intelligent people. At the beginning it may be rough, by the time we do one or two, three and four I think the sky will be our limit”.
He explained that “all what am looking for is let us be able to use it and get the best for our country, whether it is INEC, or a commission or even if it is a civil society group, people with integrity and credibility that can help the nation. By the time you start to do this, you are helping the country” he said.
According to the lawmaker “If you are student of international politics you will agree with me that most of us, the moment there is America or United Kingdom election, we are always glue to our television monitoring and following their debates and in fact from the debate of America election, there are lot of things that you learn, is like you are in school.
Continuing he said “If you watch out Nigerian debate, we do it at will, I may decide I don’t want NTA, I want OAK Television, everybody want to go to where they will give him banana questions. And that will not bring out the best from our candidates and that will not help the electorate.
“I didn’t use the word compulsory, I used the word mandatory. And mandatory and compulsory are two different words. If it is mandatory, you may even decide not to go, you do that at your own peril, because the truth of the matter is that the way the social media is now, it will be very difficult for them to give you a date that a credible organization or INEC is conducting a debate and you say you won’t go.
“And number two, most people that believe they are not competent enough to come out would go, it serve as a screening, if you don’t trust yourself in the first instance to have a very good integrity, character to have your genuine certificate with you, you won’t come out.
“After screening yourself before coming out to screen you, it might purge out the miscreants and those people who are not supposed to come out to contest in the first instance.
“At the 8th Senate I sponsored the bill, I proposed a commission and the commission because of fund did not see the light of the day, and the INEC people even came for the public hearing at that time, so from the information and data gathered, INEC believe they have a department that can handle such a thing.
“However the next public hearing which we are going to do, we will make sure a lot of people come up with different proposal, we are not rigid” Senator Buhari added.
