The Obi-Datti Media Office has ruled out any possibility of a public debate between the vice-presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Ahmed Baba-Ahmed and professor Wole Soyinka.
The Nobel laureate in his recent media round on the outcome of the 2023 presidential election criticised Baba-Ahmed’s position and challenged him to a public debate.
The vice-presidential candidate had in one of his interviews, said that swearing in the president-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu who he argued never met the Constitutional requirement will amount to ending democracy in Nigeria.
However, Soyinka said what Datti said amounts to “fascistic rhetoric,” and went further to challenge him to a one-on-one interview about the state of the country’s democratic governance at this point in its history.
But the media office in a press statement on Saturday said “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,” is in sharp contrast to our culture.
The statement while wondering why the late hour intervention of “Prof. Wole Soyinka in issues around the flawed 2023 elections,” encouraged him to “use his influence to drag his preferred candidate, who resisted debates throughout the campaign, to the studio this second,” and Datti will willingly take them on.
The statement reads:
Like many Nigerians we are bewildered by the late hour intervention of our respected Nobel laureate Prof Wole Soyinka in issues around the flawed 2023 elections. Where was he all this while?
One of those who should ordinarily and rightfully be honoured as the conscience of the nation, Prof. Soyinka is now criminalising dissent and infact weighing in on the side of fraud and injustice!
We state therefore that the vice-presidential candidate of 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.
