Professor Mahmood Yakubu, chairman of the Independent National Election Commission (INEC), stated that the commission does not have the authority to compel any electoral candidate to attend a debate.
He made the remarks during a quarterly consultative meeting with media executives in Abuja on Thursday.
Yakubu argued that, like voting, debate is a democratic right. We all know that the purpose of debates is to educate citizens.
He said, “I am not sure we can compel someone to attend the debate. You cannot do that. Even in most advanced countries, you can’t compel someone to do anything in a democracy. Debate, just like voting, is a democratic right. We know debates are to make citizens be better informed.
“However, there is an unspoken consequence for candidates not participating. I also understand that some candidates prefer not to attend in order to avoid making mistakes that would drive voters from them.
“We are, however, happy with the job the election debate group is doing. The effort of the media in this aspect should be supported, but they should also be non-partisan.
“Many political parties have come to complain to us that they are not invited to debate. In 2019, we have over 70 presidential candidates and now we have 18,” the statement added.
INEC calls for CSOs help
Mahmood Yakubu has asked Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) for help in cleaning up the nation’s voter rolls.
Yakubu made the call during the Commission’s quarterly meeting with the organization in Abuja.
“I will like to appeal to all Nigerians to seize the opportunity of the display to scrutinise the list and help us clean it further so that the final register of voters for the 2023 general elections can be compiled and published,” he said.
“We played our own part, which was to do the initial cleaning up of the register, but the law required that Nigerians help us, and that is why we’re printing 9.3 million copies of the register and displaying the same at the wards and local governments nationwide.
“Let me once again appeal to civil society and Nigerians in general to please, when we paste the list, check and scrutinise so that if there are still ineligible persons in the register, kindly draw our attention to it so that at the end of the day, we’ll have a clearer and better register for the election.”
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