The Obi-Datti media campaign office has ruled out acquiescence for the Labour Party (LP) vice-presidential candidate, Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed to debate with Prof. Wole Soyinka on the outcome of the February 25 election.
Reacting to a one-on-one debate challenge to Datti Ahmed by the Nobel laureate over his views on the constitutionality of inaugurating President-elect Bola Tinubu, the campaign told Soyinka to instead bring his preferred candidates to debate the LP vice-presidential candidate.
The Obi-Datti campaign said the LP vice-presidential candidate’s decision not to take Soyinka up on his offer was not out of cowardice but for cultural and political reasons as Datti will not like “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”.
The media office further said that another reasons Datti Ahmed would not debate the celebrated writer is that, he (Soyinka) was not on any of the opposing ballots in the election. It, however, said if Soyinka could use his influence to bring out his preferred candidates for the debate, he would be too willing to take them on.
Baba-Ahmed, last on Wednesday, while speaking on Channels Television programme, urged President Muhammadu Buhari and the Chief Justice of Nigeria not to swear in Tinubu, whom INEC had declared as the President-elect, insisting that declaring Tinubu the winner and issuing him a Certificate of Return was against the constitution.
“Whoever swears in Mr. Tinubu” has “ended democracy” in Nigeria, a position that did not sit well with Soyinka and the Tinubu campaign.
Reacting to Baba-Ahmed’s position, Soyinka described the remarks as a “kind of do-or-die attitude and provocation” that goes contrary to democratic disposition.
He further labeled the LP vice-presidential candidate a fascist who tried to “dictate to the supreme arbiter of the nation.”
