Last Friday, five persons, three men and two women, lined up at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja, to tell us the story that we all are eager to hear: how they, and their bosses, the President, will run Nigeria if they win the 2019 presidential election. Those who took part in the vice presidential debate were Professor Yemi Osinbajo (APC), Mr. Peter Obi (PDP), Ms Umma Getso (Young Progressive Party), Mr. Ganiyu Galadima (Allied Congress Party of Nigeria), Ms Khadijah Abdullahi-Iya (Alliance for New Nigeria). The five of them spent a total of two and a half hours in a strictly structured and strictly timed speaking format. It did not offer much thrill apparently because they were largely discussing the economy which belongs to the department of hard news and hardly excites the public even though the economy runs their lives.
But in a country where the poverty level has risen astronomically and we are ranked as the poverty headquarters of the world a discussion of the economy ought to excite us. The audience in the hall showed some excitement from time to time but by the rules of these debates they are not expected to cheer or jeer any of the debaters even if they say things that deserve an ovation or opprobrium. However, the debate produced just a little spark between Professor Yemi Osinbajo of the APC and Mr. Peter Obi of the PDP since these are the two main parties which are considered the front-runners in the presidential race. The candidates of the other three parties played a very minimal part, said nothing controversial or really memorable and without knowing it they made the debate an Osinbajo/Obi affair.
To be fair, it is very difficult to structure a presidential or vice presidential debate for more than two candidates. From what we saw last Friday the debate was really not a debate because people only waited to answer the questions they were asked. After answering they would wait patiently for their next question. A real debate ought to be between two persons who can give as much as they can receive. They can look at each other’s moves, tackle each other when the need arises, and kick the ball as well as the shin. That is what produces the sparks and make the debate rewarding for everyone. It may also be that the candidates did not have a good turn of the phrase or memorable one liner that should have pumped the viewers’ adrenalin. However, there were a few hot exchanges between Osinbajo and Obi on the basis of facts and figures. Some of those facts and figures thrown at us by the debaters, especially Osinbajo and Obi, have been checked by The Cable and thrown into the public space. Now the politicians must know that whatever they say will be recorded by us and diligently verified. The era of lie-telling and public deception by politicians is over. Technology has ensured that we can find the worth or worthlessness of their words within minutes.
At the debate Obi asked why the Buhari Government is paying subsidy on petrol when, “Nigeria has one of the lowest car ownerships in the world. It is 10 per 1000. So we have only two million vehicles and you are paying almost a trillion naira when you have 87 million people that are poor.” I doubted the car ownership figure of two million even though I did not have the real figure. I knew that even Lagos alone probably has more than two million cars. From the search done by The Cable, the National Bureau of Statistics said in the third quarter of 2017 that Nigeria had 11, 547,236 cars. Even then, assessing the consumption of petrol only by the number of cars is faulty. Millions of Nigerians utilize petrol-powered generators for both domestic and industrial use which increases the overall petrol consumption level. However, petrol subsidy will remain an issue because the figures don’t seem to add up; they never come down even when the price of crude comes down and because there is lack of transparency in the NNPC the debate will continue. Osinbajo said during the debate that if subsidy is removed from petrol the price could rise to about N200 per litre. Obi brought a fresh dimension to the debate when he said: “there is no way a country can have a budget of N340 billion for health which translates to N5 a day for each person and then pay N1 billion for subsidy. Osinbajo countered that every country including the developed have subsidy in one form or another. The questions remain unanswered (a) who verifies the truthfulness or otherwise of the actual subsidy worth? Why should we continue to import petroleum products at inflated rates when we could have sorted out the refining problem by building new refineries and repairing the four existing ones? It is evidence of our foolishness as a country that we are a major exporter of crude oil and a major importer of refined petroleum products.
Obi asserted that African trade was very low, less than 9% but this is untrue. According to Afri-Exim Bank intra-African trade stands at 15%. In 2016, intra-African exports made up 18% of total world exports according to Brookings Institution as verified by The Cable.
The other contentious issue at the debate was corruption. That will remain a subject of eternal interest to Nigerians because of the enormity of the problem. Most Nigerians agree that corruption is a major problem which has been a major hindrance to development and needs to be tackled vigorously. President Muhammadu Buahri has made it a major plank, in fact the major plank of his government’s policy framework. The manner of tackling the problem has been an issue as the government has been accused by critics of targeting largely his political opponents to the exclusion of his cronies and supporters. When the Minister of Information, Mr. Lai Mohammed, published the names of people he called looters, he blissfully left out the names of other alleged looters who are in the good books of the Buhari government. Mr. Reno Omokiri, a former aide to President Goodluck Jonathan, promptly responded with his own list of alleged looters who are favourites of the Government. I did suggest in my column at the time that there should be a merger of all the lists so that the government can have a comprehensive list of alleged looters which it must prosecute without any discrimination whatsoever. That is the only way the anti-corruption crusade can have legitimacy and credibility and not be seen as a witch-hunt of Buhari’s political opponents.
Both Osinbajo and Obi clashed not on the validity or worth of corruption as an item for government’s crusade but on the manner of pursuing it and what level of attention it deserves to receive. Their remarks produced the most interesting quotable quotes of the evening. Obi said: “You cannot shut down your shop and be chasing criminals.” Osinbajo responded: “If the assault by thieves continues, there may be no shop to look after.” Obi decided to expatiate on the issue. He said matter-of-factly: while Nigeria was busy fighting corruption Nigerian Stock Market lost two trillion naira in one year. It is not that you cannot fight corruption. You can fight it more aggressively while addressing economic issues. For example, in 2015 unemployment and underemployment was 24%. Today, it is 40%. In 2015, we attracted $21 billion in Foreign Direct Investment. We attracted only $12 billion last year. Our per capita was $2, 500 in 2015 while it has gone down to $1, 590. These statistics are the theoretical measuring rods of how our economy is performing but the practical measurement comes from the answer we can give to this question: Is your life better today than it was in 2015? The answer will be different from person to person depending on whether it is raining where you are or the sun is shining.
What the debate achieved was to tell our leaders, present or would be that they owe us something: accountability; that we will keep asking them questions on their conduct and their management of our patrimony. It did not deal with character issues. Or are we to believe that the issue of character is unimportant for an office that is only a spit away from the top job?
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