Gyang Bere, Jos

Plateau State Debate Group has selected Governor Simon Lalong (APC), General Jeremiah Useni (retired) PDP and General Jonathan Temlong (retired) ADP and three others out of 22 governorship candidates in the state for a debate ahead of the 2019 governorship election.

Chairman, Plateau Debate Group, Dr. Daniel Meshak, said out of 22 governorship candidates in the state, six were voted by the citizens to participate in the debate. He said the debate would hold on Saturday, January 26, 2019 to enable the candidates to tell Plateau people what they intend to do for them.

“You are aware that the Plateau Debate Group made a commitment to host a live debate for the candidates vying for the office of the Governor of our state.

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“We also communicated that due to the limitation of time and space, we shall be unable to host all 22 candidates. For this reason, we embarked on a painstaking process of pre-qualifying the top contenders for the office.

“Three criteria were used in this pre-selection process: the first criterion is the candidates’ popularity on a Face-
book poll opened from December 12 to December 23, 2018; the second criterion was the candidates’ popularity in a field survey carried out in the three senatorial districts of the state.

“Last, we also considered the incumbency factor as it is fair and natural that an incumbent should participate in a debate where several candidates are contesting for the office he occupies.

“Following this rigorous process, we aggregated the scores of the candidates and have a shortlist of six, listed alphabetically: ABP – Samuel Dan-Auta Kyarshik, ADP – Jon Temlong, ANN – Alex Ladan, APC – Simon Lalong, PDP – Jeremiah Useni, SDP – Godfrey Miri.”