Obi, Okowa Clash As Tinubu Boycott Abuja Town Hall Meeting

Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi and the vice presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Ifeanyi Okowa, clashed on Sunday evening during a Town Hall Meeting which is first in the series that would be organised by Arise TV and Center for Democracy and Development, CDD to discuss security and economy.

The event witnessed protests from some youth who demanded that the presidential candidate which they support must boycott it following the refusal of Atiku Abubakar of the PDP and the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, to appear for the pragramme.

However, after a long delay, the event started with Obi, Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria People’s Party, NNPP and Kola Abiola of the Peoples Redemption Party, PRP, in attendance.

Okowa represented Atiku.

After their citations were taken, the candidates were asked to answer the same question in turns which led to sharp disagreement between Obi and Okowa.

Responding to a question on what each candidate would do when they confront bandits.

Obi revealed that “I have met some of those criminals and I have said that the more you pull them out of poverty the more you remove them from criminality.”

He frowned at a situation where those in government are richer than entrepreneurs. He noted that the more government officials are richer than entrepreneurs, the more criminals will increase.

According to him, he “will refer them to the state I governed,” which is Anambra State. “I never borrowed for eight years, and I have not been invited by anyone to question meover anything.

“I never owed gratuity or pension. I left over N50 billion for my state. I never borrowed but saved faithfully.”

He added that, “I am like you, let’s chase them away.”

Obi later responded to Okowa’s criticism saying when he was Anambra State Governor, his administration emerged number “one in education, health,” some key areas in the Millennium Development Goals, MDGs, arguing that “saving money is part of it.”

However, Okowa wasted no time to take a swipe at Obi’s position saying there is too much scarcity of money hence no need to save but spend.

He explained that “We need coordinated intelligent gathering. All security agencies must share intelligence and work together.”

He added that the police force must be decentralized to allow the states to have their police force.

He harped on the need to restructure the police because those at the state and local government levels are closer to the people, which could help arrest spate of insecurity.

Okowa made a case for increased police welfare saying, “We must make the police more comfortable with better pay.

“We must attack the issue of employment and educate our children to avoid a lot of people on the street to serve as sources of insecurity.”

He however disagreed with Obi saying Nigeria cannot save when the country needs money “for investment, to create employment” and ensure unemployed youths do not resort to insecurity.

On how each of the candidates will deal with the attack on the Kaduna/Abuja train station, Obi said it was a “failure of insecurity.”

He pointed out that, “There was a failure of intelligent gathering, indicating the government that it did not listen to the information available with indication of insecurity within that train corridor as well as previous attempts and intelligence that were ignored.”

He promised to deal with the issue, especially the weak communication, as he will be swift in dealing with it if elected.

Kwankwaso promised to increase the number of security personnel.

He said his government, if formed , would leverage on the experience he garnered during the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Abiola on his part said the security personnel from the various security agencies are enough to police the country.

He said instead of increasing the number, their welfare should be looked into to boost their morale.