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I Especially Want To See A Candidate Like Sowore Participate In Presidential Debate, Says Ezekwesili

December 13, 2018

“As a country with huge contingent of parties fielding candidates for election, it does make sense to at least allow more than five such parties, at least 25 per cent of those candidates, to participate in the most influential of presidential debates. I especially want to see a candidate like @YeleSowore whose AAC has been diligent in crisscrossing universities to awaken our young to engage in our politics," she wrote.

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Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, presidential candidate of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN), has called on the Nigerian Elections Debate Group (NEDG) and the Broadcasting Organisations of Nigeria (BON) to include Omoyele Sowore, presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) in the presidential debate scheduled for January 2019.

NEDG and BON had issued a statement on Tuesday, noting that only five political parties — Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN), Alliance for New Nigeria (ANN), All Progressives Congress (APC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Young Progressives Party (YPP) — would participate in the presidential debate scheduled to hold on January 19, 2019. [story_link align="left"]65522[/story_link]

The announcement had been greeted with criticism as Nigerians across various platforms demanded for more candidates to be included in the debate. [story_link align="left"]65535[/story_link]

Also lending her voice to the calls for inclusion of more candidates, Ezekwesili noted that she especially wants to see Sowore on the platform.

Making her comments on the subject, she tweeted: “As a country with huge contingent of parties fielding candidates for election, it does make sense to at least allow more than five such parties, at least 25 per cent of those candidates, to participate in the most influential of presidential debates. #PresidentialDebates

“I especially want to see a candidate like @YeleSowore whose AAC has been diligent in crisscrossing universities to awaken our young to engage in our politics.

“He is doing the country a great service, because we must have that generation of Nigerians fully understand and embrace Plato’s counsel: 'those who think that politics is beneath them shall be ruled by their inferiors'."

The ACPN candidate and former Minister of Education also asked that APGA, KOWA and Socialist Democratic Party be added to the list of parties.