On Friday, December 14, 2018, the Vice Presidential candidates of the PDP, APC, ACPN, ANN and YPP starred in the first of several televised debates ahead of the 2019 general elections.

The debate participants were Umma Getso (YPP), Ganiyu Galadima (ACPN), Khadijah Abdullahi-Iya (ANN), Peter Obi (PDP) and Yemi Osinbajo (APC).

Peter Obi (PDP)



He started like a house on fire, reeling out statistics and proffering solutions to a host of economic challenges plaguing Nigeria at the moment. He certainly had Osinbajo in his crosshairs.

However, a host of Obi’s numbers didn’t add up following some fact checking.

The PDP candidate announced that Nigeria has 2 million cars plying the roads. The registered number of vehicles in Nigeria, according to the nation’s statistics bureau, is 11million.

Obi also said Nigeria’s trade with Africa stood at 9 percent. The correct figure is 15 percent. According to the Afriexim Bank, intra-Africa trade is around 15 percent. In 2016, intra-African exports made up 18 percent of total Nigerian exports according to the Brookings Institution.

Obi’s claims that 87 million Nigerians are unemployed was also a stat pulled from outer space. 34 million Nigerians are unemployed according to latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). 87 million is about the total number of Nigeria's labour force.

Nigeria’s foreign direct investment for 2015 wasn’t $21bn, like Obi told everyone. Nor did it fall to $12bn in 2017.

According to NBS capital importation reports, Nigeria’s total imported capital stood at $9.6 billion in 2015.

Some of Obi’s claims on Nigeria slipping down the global competitive index in 2018, were not correct as well. The World Economic Forum report states that Nigeria rose on the index by 10 places in 2018.

However, Obi floored Vice President Osinbajo on the petroleum subsidy debate. His argument that Nigeria is “subsidizing inefficiency” is right on the money when you consider that the subsidy regime on petrol hasn’t significantly impacted on purchasing power or improved the economy in any way, shape or form.

Nigeria is better off finding ways to refine its crude oil locally and fixing the economy instead of paying trillions in subsidy annually.

Yemi Osinbajo (APC)



He was on the defensive throughout as expected. Brilliant on the delivery and elocution--a forte for him.

However, like Obi, Osinbajo made some wild, exaggerated claims. When he said Nigeria currently produces a chunk of the rice it consumes, not a few Nigerians were left raising puzzled eyebrows. Millions of Nigerians would tell you for free that local rice is almost never on the market shelves when they go shopping.

"We are producing 90 percent of the rice that we consume and we are importing only 2 percent of what we used to import", Osinbajo said without wincing. This statement is definitely not supported by current realities.

It is also not true that the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway was practically abandoned under Goodluck Jonathan. There were a few attempts to fix the road in the preceding dispensation, although not enough to get any real work done.

Osinbajo’s attempts to defend the petrol subsidy regime as some kind of panacea to economic improvement, was also weak and scattergun.

But the vice president delivered some sucker punches of his own when he called out Obi for talking about how Nigeria was destroyed when it was in fact the opposition PDP that supervised some of that destruction; and when he flattened Obi who posited that fighting corruption doesn’t really matter.

“You can’t leave your shop and be chasing criminals”, Obi said to applause from what was largely an unruly audience.

“If you allow criminals to steal everything, there will be no shop”, Osinbajo clapped-back to more applause.

Touche.

Good outing overall from Osinbajo as you would expect from a born talker.

The presidential debate will take place on Saturday, January 19, 2019.

https://all-gists..com/2018/12/see-how-osinbajo-peter-obi-performed-during-televised-dabate-yesterday.html

See as handsome bobo is sitting with all confidence

Carry go Your Excellency.

Nice one

Atiku obi 2019

If is not PETER WANG OBI..

THEN ITS FAKE..
IS MIDGET
IS LYING..IS PASTOR
OR DULLARD.


ATIKU OBI IS. BAE..

This shows that being a SAN does not guarantee victory in debates.

Same thing happened between Keyamo and that PDP guy

You all will be amazed at the performance of kachukwu when Atiku reapoints him to head the oil ministry next year

Naaa sooooo.. we dey see am