Prince Adewole Adebayo, the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) has blasted the Center for Democracy and Development (CDD) for not inviting him to its presidential debate on Arise TV.
The organisation, in collaboration with Arise TV, had invited four (4) of Nigeria’s 18 presidential candidates to a ‘presidential town hall’ for a debate today, Sunday.
Those invited for the debate include Bola Tinubu of the ruling APC, Atiku Abubakar of the PDP, Peter Obi of the Labour Party and Rabiu Kwankwaso of the NNPP.
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The four candidates were selected based on the performance of their parties in an online survey by the organisers during which all the 18 political parties were listed in alphabetical order.
“The result of this survey informed our decision to invite the highest four scoring parties – LP, APC, PDP and NNPP to the town hall,” the Director of the CDD, Idayat Hassan, said in a statement.
The explanation did not, however, deter the SDP candidate from expressing his dissatisfaction with not being invited to the debate.
In a series of tweets on Sunday, Prince Adebayo wrote;
“The *Arise News* Townhall Meeting with a misnomer called Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) fake Debate for @PeterObi, @atiku @officialABAT and @KwankwasoRM is a rude joke by failed politicians and their bankrupt media lapdogs to rig the 2023 election with a cover-up!
“How can there be a ballot revolution or people decide if all they have to choose are the Liar, Joker, the Dodger, and the Corrupt? This quartet stands for the 4 sides of the status quo that Nigeria needs to get away from if we want our country not to continue to be a crime scene.
“We need Nigerians to hear from every willing presidential candidate, not a few selected by those accomplices who feed on the carcass and leftovers of proceeds of crimes via fake polls of dubious intent and opaque methodologies. Millions of voters are #ADEquate with #HopeAgain2023.”