NBA Confab: Presidential candidates clash on key campaign issues as Gbajabiamila defends FG policies

By Daniel Abia P/Harcourt More than five presidential candidates of various opposition political parties on Monday clashed as they took on one another on issues bordering on Nigeria’s security architecture and the future of policing,. This is as the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, defended the administration’s push for state police reforms and other policies The second panel session of the day, which featured the presidential candidates, proved to be the most engaging of the conference, with discussions centred on security, police reform, state policing, elections, and fuel subsidy. This contrasted with an earlier session featuring AAC candidate, Omoyele Sowore, senator Dino Melaye, and others, where Melaye’s contributions were largely muted.

One of the defining moments of the session was an exchange between Sowore and former Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi who is also the vice presidential candidate of African Democratic Congress, ADC. Rotimi Amaechi explained that Nigeria economy is very bad, and that one of the ways to stabilize the economy is to create employment and encourage local content ,so that there will be money in people’s pocket for circulation He recalled that he built over 500 primary schools ,over three hundred health centres ,over two hundred roads and crimes drastically reduced , hinting that he fought insecurity to a standstill with adequate intelligence gathering as a sitting governor. Amaechi hinted that he will support community police over state police, because community policing will primarily detect real issues , adding that the Atiku /Amaechi ticket when elected, will be detrabalised in political appointment,to ensure that it will spread across the country, unlike president Tinubu ,who has concentrated all appointments in the agencies around the Yoruba On the question of policing, most candidates on the panel expressed support for the adoption of state police, but the candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Adewale Adebayo pushed instead for a three-tier structure encompassing federal, state, and local government policing.

On security, Sowore and Adebayo argued that a change in national leadership was required to address Nigeria’s security challenges, insisting that what they described as “terrorists in the Presidential villa” needed to be voted out for meaningful progress to be made.