Intellectual Deficiency That Gives Way To Unethical Behaviour Conduct; Scripted

In any civilized clime, political and leadership decisions are arrived at through a systematic process of persuasion. Whoever that wants people to be aligned to his or her intents or goals, achieves it via a refined and reasonable system of reasoning and conviction. Once someone is convinced that the idea before him or her is in his or her interest and, probably, in the interest of the larger society, his or her commitment to the pursuit of such an idea becomes irrepressible. Persuasion or conviction is the exact antithesis of coercion or suppression. It,therefore, follows that for a leader to have a large support-base, he or she must profess an ideology that is acceptable to the masses. For any idea or concept to be accepted by a people, the initiator of such an idea or concept must take the responsibility of convincing those who ordinarily would not imbibe the idea.

Democracy, in consonance with the essentialism of dialogue, encourages leaders to engage themselves in debates, with the hope of convincing, in a dispassionate manner, their audience. The first televised presidential debate in the United States of America took place in a television studio in Chicago on September 26, 1960 and it was between Sen. John F. Kennedy of Democratic Party and Vice President Richard M. Nixon of Republican Party. Kennedy won in the election. In 1980, there was a Presidential debate between President Jimmy Carter of the Democratic Party and Mr. Ronald Regan of the Republican Party. Mr Regan was victorious in the election that followed. As at 2012, there was a well-televised Presidential debate between President Barrack Obama of the Democratic Party and Senator Mitt Romney of the Republican Party. As it turned out, Mr Obama emerged the winner of the contest.

Election debates offer the debaters a unique opportunity of being independently and impartially assessed by persons who may not have come across them before but whose individual opinions could aggregate to bring about their victory or failure in a given contest.

Since the return of Nigeria to the path of democracy in 1999, efforts have continuously been made to improve on the conduct of elections in the country. The Independent National Electoral Commission; INEC, has been growing from strength to strength, learning from its mistakes and progressing on a gradual but steady and re-assuring basis. Initial pessimism that many Nigerians had harboured against the electoral body is systematically giving way to cautious optimism. Hope is gradually returning to the electorate that their votes may afterall, count.

One innovation that has come into reckoning in Nigeria election environmental is the birth of Nigeria Election Debate Group; NEDG. This Group, arguably made up of seasoned and unbiased Nigerian professionals and technocrats, has brilliantly created a platform on which Presidential Candidates and their running mates could separately but concertedly reach the Nigerian electorate by making their stand on sensitive national issues such as corruption, unemployment, poverty, youth restiveness and insecurity known to the people and stating, in a very convincing manner, how they intend to address those issues, if elected.

Kudos must be given to the Nigeria Election Debate Group for coming up with this wonderful initiative. If the spirit of the initiative could be imbibed and sustained by principal political actors, it would simply help the country's democracy grow and become the envy of politicians from other African countries.

It is, however, worrisome that instead of the Nigerian Political class to applaud, with one voice, this well thought out idea, there have, rather, developed inexplicable discordant tunes. This situation has arisen from the stand of All Progressive Congress; A.P.C., not to participate, in any manner, in the on-going debate.

Politics is best practised using the jaw-jaw approach instead of resort to bickering, odium or violence. Nigeria's present political reality is that the People's Democratic Party is the Party in power at the Federal level while the All Progressive Congress is the main opposition Party. At a time when the country's economy is having some challenges, it would even have been advantageous for the opposition Party to latch on the opportunity provided by the debate to attract the support of Nigerians by coming up with very convincing reasons why the electorate should give her an opportunity to serve. With the purported determination of the main opposition to have a slot at the Presidency, many well-meaning observers had thought that the All progressive Congress should have jumped at the birth of Nigeria Election Debate Group and its attractions.

Rather disappointingly, the All Progressive Congress has openly dissociated itself from this noble course of political enlightenment. It 'decreed' that none of its officials or candidates should participate in the debate. This is a very unhealthy development in Nigeria's march towards consolidation of her democracy.

This development is more disturbing when it is viewed from the backdrop of the insinuation already making the rounds that the Presidential Candidate of the All Progressive Congress; Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, does not possess even a secondary school certificate which is the minimal constitutional requirement for the highest political office in Nigeria.

In the light of the controversy oozing out of General Buhari's Certificate, his participation in the Presidential debate should have opened a window for people to assess his intellectual capability to preside over the affairs the most populated country in Africa and the whole of the Black world, certificate or no certificate.

It must be stated that for any citizen to preside over the affairs of Nigeria, such citizen must be above mental average and should be one that can hold his head very high amongst Heads of States of other nations. Nigeria and her citizens deserve a head of state they can be proud of and can openly say; “this is our President”!

In rounding off this piece, it is very necessary to remind the leadership of the All progressive congress that since there is the allegation that General Buhari Does not possess the required Secondary School Certificate, shielding him from participating in the Presidential Debate could be interpreted by many Nigerians to mean that he is intellectually deficient and should, therefore, not be exposed to intellectual ridicule and humiliation.

Chief (Sir) Don Ubani; KSC, JP
(Okwubunka of Asa)