This piece was informed by the weighing in of two respected media professionals on the politics of why Buhari “dodged” or “politely turned down” (depending on where you stand in the whole grandstanding) the request for a debate. Reuben Abati, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity and Malam Garba Shehu, the APC’s Presidential Campaign Organisation’s Director of Media and Publicity had different takes on the matter. For Reuben Abati, Buhari “dodged” the debate because he was insecure: “His deliberate avoidance of a Presidential debate is akin to an act of examination malpractice. It is not good enough for a man who wants to be President of our country.
“He is short-changing the Nigerian elec-torate by denying them the opportunity of assessing him properly in an open debate. While a Presidential debate is not a constitutional requirement, it is an established convention that deepens and enriches the democratic process.”
Extrapolating from the logic of Abati’s argument, we can conclude that President Jonathan “dodged” the debate in 2011 because he was insecure, and Buhari who took part in it was more secure than him. We can then pose this simple question to Abati: If Buhari was not afraid to debate Jonathan in 2011, what has changed to make him now afraid to debate him in 2015?
Malam Garba Shehu has a different take. In ‘Debating Reno Omokri and Reuben Abati’ (Vanguard, 9 March 2015), he argued: “Our view of their principal, Dr Jonathan, is that he is a man who does not know what is debate or discourse. What he knows is insults, abuse and mudslinging. He doesn’t have the frame of mind to warrant a debate. That’s the man who called President Obasanjo a motor-park tout for merely criticizing him….”
“The President they are presenting for a TV debate doesn’t know the difference between stealing and corruption and he goes on defending their ridiculous position at every given opportunity. How can you dignify a fellow who lacks the comportment of public interest with a debate?”
Like Abati’s, Malam Shehu’s defence is tongue-in-cheek because the reasons he gave on why Buhari “politely declined the request for debate”, are precisely the reasons he ought to have jumped at the opportunity to debate him. If debates are part of the politics of trying to gain political mileage, then debating a sitting president “who doesn’t have the frame of mind to warrant a debate” becomes a golden opportunity to show voters and the world at large why Buhari and not Jonathan should be entrusted with the mantle of leading this country. As we did for Abati, we can also pose a simple question for Malam Shehu: if Buhari was ready to debate Jonathan in 2011, what has really changed to make Jonathan not warrant a debate this time around?
I have sympathies for both Abati and Garba Shehu - two otherwise brilliant journalists but who have found themselves on opposite sides of the political aisle. In fact both remind me of two characters I read in my secondary school in James Hadley Chase’s thriller Whiff of Money (1969). The two main characters in that thriller - Malik and Girland - worked on opposite sides of the iron curtain as spies and detectives. Once Girland had an opportunity to kill Malik but instead, to Malik’s amazement, Girland handed him back his gun which he had taken from him, saying to the girl who had wanted to shoot Malik: “Don’t get worked up, baby. He and I just happen to be on the wrong side of the Curtain. Both of us are professionals… working in the same dirty racket. There comes a time when we can forget the little stinkers at the top who pull strings….”
Ordinarily both Abati and Shehu would not have contented themselves with the fluffy explanations they proffered on why Jonathan wants to debate Buhari and why Buhari declined to do so.
In this piece, I shall attempt a ‘real’ explanation for why Buhari did not want to debate Jonathan. I will then interrogate the nature of presidential debates and finally pose and try to answer the question of whether debates, anywhere, really have any impact on electoral outcomes.
Real reasons for Buhari’s ‘no-show’.
The first point to bear in mind is that a decision to decline or accept a debate has nothing to do with a candidate’s oratorical ability or confidence. Candidates even those reputed to be great speakers, declining a debating challenge, have a long history. In the USA for instance, Republican candidate Wendell Willkie challenged President Franklin D Roosevelt to a debate in 1940 but Roosevelt, a remarkable speaker, declined. Again in the epic contest for the Democratic presidential ticket in 2008, Barrack Obama whose ways with words partly accounted for his political ascendancy, declined further challenges for a debate from rival Hilary Clinton before the May 6 primaries in Indianan and North Carolina. In 2001, in the United Kingdom, powerful speaker Tony Blair refused to debate Tory leader William Hague, and Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader. While Labour leaders argued that such a debate would be a distraction as “the media would concentrate on the colour of the leaders’ shirts”, the widespread view was that Blair decided against the event because as the front runner at the time he had most to lose from any debate. Labour strategists also feared that an American-style debate could boost the profile of his main rival Hague by appearing to give him the same standing as Blair. For the ‘briefcase’ political parties in Nigeria, being on the same podium with the President and the main challenger is often their ‘gotcha moment’ - which explains why they are often the most enthusiastic supporters of debates in the country.
We can then surmise that when the momentum is on your side, it is best to avoid a debate because you gain nothing from such and in fact stand to lose if there is any misstep or gaffe. This explains why in 2011, when the momentum was with Jonathan, he avoided a debate - which was enthusiastically embraced by Buhari. In the same vein, in 2015, when the momentum had swung to Buhari’s side, he too avoided a debate. It is all politics, simple.
The importance of debates
Another important question for interrogation is whether debates are really important. It can be argued that for voters debates could force politicians to move from sound bites to specificities, with appropriate dollar /pound/Naira sign before their ambitious proposals. In fact presidential debates serve different functions to different constituencies: For candidates, they are primarily political encounters designed to shore up support among key voting blocs. In this sense, debates can help undecided voters to make up their minds. Most partisans however watch debates just to cheer their candidates while for the larger political system debates are an exercise in civic education that could help the citizens to untangle the complexities of some contested political issues.
Debates, especially in mature democracies like the US, are also high stake encounters where candidates prepare extensively and focus on optics and appearances. The three major debate formats are press conference, single moderator and town hall.
Because debates are media events, there is usually aggressive post-debate spin to influence the media verdict of who won. In debates, visual appearances, likability, credibility and effective use of non-verbal cues are all important. It is generally believed that candidates that articulate cogent arguments are able to use data or evidence to back up their assertions, are able to persuasively rebut the opponent’s claim and embed their arguments in coherent narratives win.
Do presidential debates have any impact on electoral outcomes?
Do outcome of debates even in mature democracy influence electoral outcomes? This remains debatable. While gaffes could hurt campaigns, especially in tight races, the impact of debates on electoral outcomes remains contested. For instance during the debate between Gerard Ford and Jimmy Carter in 1976, Ford had already cut into Carter’s large lead in the polls, and was generally viewed as having won the first debate on domestic policy. However in the second debate on foreign policy, Ford made what was widely viewed as a major blunder when he said: “There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford administration.” After this, Ford’s momentum stalled, and Carter won a very close election. But not everyone agreed that even in an instance such as the above that the debate outcome was solely responsible for victory and defeat. There are those who believe that debates take place late in the campaign season when many people have already taken sides.
In a largely illiterate and polarized society like ours, where millions do not have access to television, and most who do, are mired in what the Swedish American political scientist Goran Hyden called “the economy of affection”, the impact of televised debate on electoral outcome is likely to be mute. In fact if success at debates were to be decisive indicators of who will win elections, former Governor of Kano State Ibrahim Shekarau, who comprehensively trounced all the other contestants in the 2011 debate, would have been the President of the country today.
Despite the questionable impact of debates on political outcomes, they should be encouraged as part of the process of leadership recruitment and civic education. But it is also part of good political strategy for politicians to contrive all manner of excuses to “dodge” such debates if they calculate that that they do not stand to gain any political mileage from participating.

Source:http://www.dailytrust.com.ng/daily/columns/thursday-columns/49264-why-buhari-dodged-debating-jonathan