Some Nigerians fuming over Atiku, Buhari’s failure to attend presidential debate only showing temporal anger

By Empero Gabriel Ogbonna

I think the reason Atiku did not participate in the debate was that he was banking on beating Buhari and out shining him.

That was his mark, his target.

Atiku knew that those other Candidates cannot even get one million votes in the entire country and he knows that the battle is between him and Buhari.

Also, those other candidates are intellectuals and not really politicians and in Nigeria, politics is not for intellectuals but for die hard politicians.

He knew that if he attends the debate with those intellectuals who almost has no real experience in the actual governance except having held one post or the other, that they would floor him with their utopian arguments and concepts of what govt ought to be and not what govt is.

He also knows that in 2015, Goodluck Jonathan, in order to be branded Mr Nice Guy and a man who respects Nigerian, debated when Buhari did not attend the debate, and the result was that Jonathan who appeared in the debate lost and Buhari who did not care about the debate won

Atiku also knows that being intelligent and eloquent does not guarantee victory in Nigerian elections so his purpose for the debate was chiefly to humiliate Buhari and show the world what a lifeless one Buhari is. He knows that he is by far more intelligent and eloquent than Buhari but is not sure about the other candidates who, in all honesty, do not matter.

So when Buhari did not show, what shall be his benefit in going to the debate and making himself a scapegoat to those intellectuals at the podium?

He decided to chicken out, and issued a statement that he can only attend the debate if Buhari is there.

Like it or hate it, this is politics.

The real truth is that the debate was to educate Nigerians on what a candidate will do if elected but the apparent and popular truth is that the debate last night was to tell the entire world what a useless president Buhari is.

What rules the world is not the real truth but the apparent and popular truth.

This is the unfortunate reality.

So what is my verdict?

I don't think anybody who really wanted to vote for Buhari or Atiku would desist from doing that because Buhari or Atiku did not appear on that debate.

That was the reason Buhari did not attend.

All those showing disappointment are only exhibiting a temporal anger: by this time next week, they all will focus on Atiku and Buhari. They will not remember Moghalu, Oby or Fela.

Trust me.

If Buhari had attended, Atiku would have roasted him, and he stayed away.

If Atiku had attended in the absence of Buhari, those three eggheads would have roasted him, forgetting that he is not the real enfant terrible, but Buhari.

So, politically speaking, Buhari and Atiku acted well in their own interest in boycotting the debate.

The anger of few Nigerians who expected them to attend the debate would evaporate by this time next week or even tomorrow.

If the country must get better, there should be a law making the debates compulsory, but in the absence of such a law, nothing will change.