ADESINA TIAMIYU wrote : OSUN ELECTION DEBATES ON CHANNELS TV TODAY,19TH JULY 2014 The Channel Television debate on the Election in the State of Osun today was a very interesting outing for both parties,APC and PDP.On the side of APC is Bola Ilori,SA on Environment to Ogbeni Aregbesola and Ajibola Bashiru,Commissioner for Special Duties.PDP has Lere Oyewumi,Director of Omisores campaign organisation supported by Diran Odeyemi,Director of Publicity. The encounter started on a philosophical note from Bola Ilori who alleged that President Jonathan is turning the Nigerian Army to the armed wing of the PDP.He emphasized the facts that Ogbeni connects well to the people. Lere Oyewumi raised a lot of accusations against Ogbeni.He virtually punctured all the programmes of the Aregbe administration. Particular attention was paid to the issue of same uniform to all schools in the state,cost of the uniform and that those who went to buy the uniform from open market was taken to Ilesa prison. Responding,Ajibola Bashiru punctured the claims on the cost of uniform saying the highest for Senior Secondary students is 3500 as against the 5000 claimed by PDP.He also said those who were arrested were those who brought in counterfeit of the materials for unsuspecting members of the public. He went ahead to list figures of the number of citizens engaged in the uniform business and the number that supply foodstuff to the school feeding programme as a form of empowerment of the people.Bola Ilori disagreed that the uniform shouldnt cost more than 500 naira asking that even quality toilet papers cost 150 naira and imagine the number that will be enough to sew a cloth. He challenged the PDP and the panelists to price the cost of teru fabric in the market. Lere Adewumi listed 5 things Omisore will do for the people but there was inadequate time to discuss that. One accusation that raised temper in the studio was the claim that Ogbeni had done nothing in Osun. Bashiru reeled out a number of programmes in the area of Agriculture,road construction, modern school building,school feeding programme but PDP called them all film tricks. Diran Odeyemi challenged team APC to name one road or school the state has done in his Ibokun local government to which they were unable to answer satisfactorily. This was a low point for team APC even though it may be difficult to remember all roads built all over the state except perhaps the ones in the state capital.APC will need a pamphlet to list all of their programmes for people to know. I also take exception to comments by Diran Odeyemi that Bola Ilori is not from Osun so he may not know the terrain.However Bola Ilori responded by reminding him that he served Alao Akala the then Oyo State Governor and the Oyo people didnt villify him for that. We must begin to disabuse our minds that only an indigene of a state can hold position in such states.It is a dangerous trends. The allegations that Aregbe is using a group called the State Boys to harrass people didnt get enough attention due to time constraints. I appeal to actors in the Osun election to play by the rules at all times.It behoves on the PDP that is alleging to come up with a proof. The response from the audience via twitter suggests that they believed more in the APC than the PDP team and I also noticed that APC being the party in power has more to show the people unlike the challenger PDP that only has promises for the people. MY TAKE 1. Channels TV should create more time for programmes like this as 30 minutes is not enough to do justice to issues raised. 2. Next time,there should be one person each from both sides to allow for seamless flow of thought and comments. One member interviewer will also just suffice. 3. The PDP scored a major point when team APC was unable to list what Aregbe in Ibokun. Although it may be difficult to remember the long list of works done by Aregbe administration, APC will need a pamphlet to list all their achievements for people to see in the face of an opposition that wont admit government did anything 4.Team APC scored a major point by clearly portraying team PDP as liars especially with Bola Iloris toilet roll analysis which was clear even to the dumb.Team PDP should improve on their fact checks 5. While time constraints will not allow team APC to respond to the use of state boys by Ogbeni as alleged by team PDP,team APC was able to drive home the negative impacts of the use of Nigerian Army to hound opposition. This certainly constitute a major threat to our nascent democracy. 6. Team Viewers: The calls by PDP to return schools to the state they were before can never be a good news to parents in Osun with the standard of schools we see Aregbe commissioning everyday. CONCLUSION If debate is to bring out the depth of thoughts,programmes,achievements and sincerity of parties, I will rate them as follows: Team APC: 60% (marked down for lack of off hand facts) Team PDP: 40% (marked down for apparent lies and non articulation of their programmes) Team Channels: 50% ( marked down for inappropriate time) Bravo to all the teams and I wish Osun people peaceful and free n fair elections. More please!!!
Posted on: Sun, 20 Jul 2014 05:33:02 +0000
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