A pro-democracy think tank, the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), has extended invitations to leading presidential candidates in the 2023 elections to speak on their plans for the country.
The candidates invited to the town hall, which the CDD has organised in collaboration with Arise Television, are Asiwaju Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC); Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP); Peter Obi, Labour Party (LP); and Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso, New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP).
A statement issued today by the Director of the CDD, Idayat Hassan, said the first of these sessions would hold today and would be aired on Arise TV and on its YouTube and social media channels.
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The initiative was designed to allow the presidential flagbearers to convince Nigerians that their political parties possess the best ideas for bringing lasting solutions to the country’s challenges.
“This follows CDD’s constant campaign to ensure that the parties and candidates conduct issue-based campaigns. Nigerians need to hear how their future leaders plan to address the rising level of insecurity, considerable economic challenges and the impact of foreign affairs in domestic considerations.
“This has informed our engagements around the elections, from providing fact-checking support and working with partners to provide analyses on the election security terrain,” Hassan stated.
The CDD, commenting on the methodologies for choosing the four political parties, said a survey was run on Twitter from October 4 to 10 asking citizens to vote on which four parties they wanted to hear from.
“All 18 political parties were listed in alphabetical order. After the survey was closed, nine parties did not receive a vote.
“The remaining nine received the following percentage of votes: African Action Congress, 20.7 per cent; APC, 86.2 per cent; All Progressives Grand Alliance, 6.9 per cent; LP, 96.6 per cent; NNPP, 51.7 per cent; PDP, 82.8 per cent; Peoples Redemption Party, 6.9 per cent; Social Democratic Party, 6.9 per cent; and Young Progressive Party, 13.8 per cent.
The statement explained that the result of the survey informed the decision to invite the highest four scoring parties – LP, APC, PDP and NNPP – to the town hall.
The CDD is an independent and neutral institution, and is non-partisan or linked to any political party or candidate.
Harrison Edeh is a journalist with the International Centre for Investigative Reporting, always determined to drive advocacy for good governance through holding public officials and businesses accountable.