The Obi-Datti campaign team said that Datti Baba-Ahmed, the Labour Party’s (LP) vice-presidential candidate, will not debate Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka.
According to the campaign team, Baba-Ahmed declined Soyinka’s offer to debate “not out of cowardice, but for cultural and political reasons.”
BizWatch Nigeria recalls that Soyinka challenged Baba-Ahmed to a debate over his comment that the president-elect “did not meet constitutional requirements” in a piece titled “Fascism on Course.”
In a statement issued on Saturday, the Obi-Datti media office asked Soyinka to present his preferred presidential candidate, who avoided debates during the campaign, for a one-on-one meeting with the LP vice-presidential candidate.
“One of those who should ordinarily and rightfully be honoured as the conscience of the nation, Prof Soyinka is now criminalising dissent and in fact weighing in on the side of fraud and injustice,” the statement reads.
“We state therefore that the vice-presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Dr. Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed cannot take up Prof Soyinka’s offer of a public debate, not out of cowardice, but for cultural and political reasons.
“Culturally it’s just not decent. Their age and accomplishment gaps taken into account, for Datti to sit opposite the 88-year-old global icon and point out his folly to his face, even if the old man called for it.
“And politically there is no basis for such a challenge in that Prof is not on any of the opposite ballots.
“If however, he can use his influence to drag his preferred candidates, who resisted debates throughout the campaign, to the studio this second, Datti says he is more than willing to take them on.”
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