Buhari’s, Atiku’s campaign chiefs clash at presidential debate

President Muhammadu Buhari’s campaign chief and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) challenger Atiku Abubakar  clashed yesterday at a debate organised ahead of next year’s presidential election.

Segun Sowunmi, the Atiku Campaign Organisation spokesman, was tackled by Buhari’s Campaign Coordinator and Transport Minister Rotimi Amaechi.

The debate was hosted by The Osasu Show at NAF Conference Centre and Suites.

Sowunmi spoke as Atiku’s representative, Amaechi, though the Coordinator of the Muhammadu Buhari Campaign Organisatio, was not on the debate panel.

Speaking on the plans of the Atiku campaign as raised by Sowunmi, Amaechi raised up his hand to ask questions from the PDP representative.

He said the Atiku-Obasanjo led a privatisation of national assets to their cronies.

Amaechi said: “The first question is that they privatised, to who? Who did they privatise to? To themselves, and they are coming back. Then I was a young man. I didn’t have money to buy,” Amaechi said.

“Question number two, let me thank the woman who said power had improved. Under them, with $16 billion, we had 3,000 megawatts of power, now we have 7,000.

Read also: Atiku in Adamawa: vote out Buhari

“Three, and finally, on railways, we all go to Kaduna. We are talking about railway, who has the railway? Our government, right?”

Responding, Sowunmi said Amaechi was speaking trash, rather than sticking to an issue-based campaign.

He said: “An eight-year governor of a state in PDP comes to public space, riding on the alleged integrity of just President Muhammadu Buhari, and speaking trash to the people, what exactly is this?”

“Now, we had assumed, we had signed up to an issue-based campaign, and we just want to beg the operators of this present government to stick to the issues.

“We speak about opening up the economy to make sure that those who have the competencies to drive growth must be given the enabling environment to create value, and our people can plug in.”

Sowunmi went on to speak on some of the issues regarding the campaign, on behalf of his principal, saying the government should stick to regulations and let those with the capacity run businesses.