TheCable

Doyin Okupe, special adviser to the president on public affairs, has based the refusal of Muhammadu Buhari, presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, to participate in electioneering debates on his “little mental capacity” and “pedestrian, embarrassing” understanding of governance.

Speaking earlier on Monday, Dele Alake, director of strategic communication of Buhari Campaign Organisation, had said Buhari was shunning the debates because some of the organisers had been compromised, hence the credibility of the debates was doubtful.

But in a statement on his Facebook wall and posted on his Twitter handle @doyinokupe, Okupe alleged that the Buhari was avoiding the debates because he had little mental capacity.

“Buhari will not debate anywhere. Reason: All the organisers are compromised, according to him. So what will they do? He believes all the organisers are so corrupted that he and his team suspect they may give President Jonathan the questions before time. If that is their problem there is a simple solution. Meet with organisers and request that all questions except follow ups be given to all candidates prior to the debate,” he said.

“However watching his perfomance on Channels TV this morning at the hurriedl-put-together meeting with the business community in Lagos, the reason for the rejection for a proper debate became too clear.

“Buhari unarguably has little mental capacity, extremely superficial if not pedestrian understanding of good governance and embarrassing, archaic knowledge of developmental economics.

“Apart from the obvious choreography employed throughout the 40 minutes discussion it was impossible for an informed and impartial observer to go away with anything.

“There were no policy statements, no insight into any directions their government will be going; nothing to compare with what is in place now. Lowest point was Buhari’s mundane and unintelligent response to the very cogent question raised by Foluso Phillips, chairman NESG.

“No one in his right sense will expect much from a 40-minute dialogue with the Lagos business group, but nobody also would have expected such an abysmally poor and shallow performance from a man who hopes to govern Nigeria in 2015.

“Rising through the ranks in the army may give a man a school certificate status but the basic intellectual backwardness and restricted exposure will pose a serious challenge when high level cerebral performance is required as it will be for an occupant of the seat of the president.”