In the heat of the controversy generated by the refusal of the All Progressives Congress, APC, standard bearers, General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) and Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, to participate in a presidential debate put together by the Nigerian Elections Debate Group, NEDG, DAILY POST instituted an online survey to find out from Nigerians whether the nation’s main opposition party was right in declining participation in the debate to which it was duly invited.
The poll which opened on February 2 closed by 12 noon (Nigerian time) on February 13. By this time, a total of 1191 votes have been registered. Out of this figure, 500 votes which constitute 41.98 per cent believes that the candidates are in the wrong to have declined the offer to participate in the election debate while the remaining 691 respondents taking up 58.02 per cent think otherwise.
Inasmuch as a narrow margin can be observed from the number of those who voted for the two different options, those who affirmed that the APC candidates are right in declining to participate in the NEDG presidential debates carried the day with an excess of 191 votes which amounted to 16.04 per cent.
The presidential candidates must have seen this coming when they, through the APC Presidential Campaign Organization, APCPCO, announced that they would would not be partaking in the debates slated by NEDG to come shortly before the presidential election date hitherto scheduled for February 14, 2015. They at that time hinged their boycott on a suspected bias exhibited against them by promoters of the debates, an allegation which the organizers strongly refuted.
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