How candidates fared at Lagos governorship election debate January 16, 2015Nicholas Ibekwe PDP Governorship Candidate, Jimi Agbaje got the highest score LIVE UPDATE Brilliant ideas to make Lagos a better city were in abundant supply at the 2015 Lagos State Gubernatorial Debates at the Archbishop Vining Memorial Cathedral in Ikeja on Thursday, as candidates vying to become the next governor put across their plans to the public. Education, urban transportation, security and alternative ways of generating revenue for the state, and the economy dominated. Jimi Agbaje, Peoples Democratic Party By miles Mr. Agbaje was the star of the debate. He literally took other contestants to the cleaners with the masterful delivery, use of statistics and data from government and other international organisations. Unlike the raucous response some of the contestants elicited from the audience, any time Mr. Agbaje spoke, the audience stayed quiet. He started by saying being a small scale business man himself, he knew what it takes to run a small scale enterprise and his government would give priority attention to SMEs in the state. Mr. said his vision for Lagos is for it to be a mega city where a Lagosian would live in a secure and prosperous environment. “I want to build a Lagos where people can realise their aspirations,” he said. He said the incumbent government is paying lip service to the development of primary education: “All that we do with education is to pay recurrent expenditure 80 per cent of the budget of education is spent on recurrent expenditure. The government spends 3 per cent of its budget of primary education. This is poor,” he said. He said he would revitalise vocational skill and education so people with vocational education don’t mere end up as roadside vulcanizers and welders of burglary proofs. He promised to create an all-inclusive Lagos that represents the cosmopolitan nature of the state: “What makes Lagos bubble is the fact that it brings people from everywhere. The day you begin to deport Lagos becomes a village.” He also tactically directed all his responses to the policies of the incumbent, APC government. This was a smart move as it placed his policies side by side with the incumbent’s and allowed the listener to quickly appraise the better. Score: 9/10 | ********* 5. Akinwumni Ambode, All Progressives Congress As the candidate of the incumbent party, Mr. Ambode was placed on the defensive most of the time and this affected his performance during the debate. However, he gave a good account of himself. With a boyish smile permanently stamped on his face, if he was worried by the attacks and taunts directed at him by the other contestants he did not show it. While he spent most of time explaining how he would make the policies of the incumbent administration better, he did not articulate so much of his own original ideas. He said public service is a noble service and promised to bring the wealth of experience he had garnered from over 25 years of public service to running the state. “I am an accountant you can count on me. My call to you is to stand up and be counted.” He said his vision for Lagos is that of leadership and accountability, good governance and quality service. Mr. Ambode promised to build an educational trust fund to carter for unemployed youths in the state. He also promised to build studio apartments for the teeming youth of the state to ease the housing difficulty in the state.
Posted on: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 23:08:40 +0000
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