The Presidency has said the final report of the European Union (EU) on the 2019 general elections in Nigeria, was confirmation that the polls reflected the will of Nigerians and that the world was in support of President Muhammadu Buhari’s re-election.
It however, promised that the Buhari administration would work with all Nigerians, state institutions, parties, civil society, the media and other experts to ensure that the recommendations by the EU were implemented and the areas of concern addressed.
The European Union Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) in Nigeria had on Saturday presented its final report on the election to journalists in Abuja.
Presenting the report, the EU Chief Observer, Maria Arena, said the Union had made 30 recommendations but laid emphasis on seven of the 30.
Reacting to the report in a statement on Saturday, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, noted that the Presidency welcomed the EU recommendations.
He also noted that the observers were invited to the country by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC and welcomed by the government of President Buhari “as an indication of the administration’s good intentions, commitment to a purely democratic process and desire to improve on the next elections.”
He said: “The administration of President Buhari will work with all Nigerian citizens, state institutions, parties, civil society, the media, and other experts to make sure that the improvements recommended by the EU are implemented, and that these areas of concern are addressed.
“It is noteworthy that INEC is in receipt of a number of recommendations that form a part of the final report.
“The Presidency assures that the Commission is in safe hands and happy that they are currently engaged in root and branch reviews of the 2019 general elections and will input lessons learned into its recommendations for electoral and constitutional reforms.
“We believe that the commission conducted a good election and will continue to improve on its processes and procedures.”According to the Presidential aide, while it was regrettable that the elections in a few parts of the country witnessed some violence and other shortcomings as noted by the EU, none of those affected the overall outcome of the elections.
“Thankfully, EU did not question the results of the presidential election.
“For instance, on page 3 in its Executive Summary, the EU said: ‘positively, the elections were competitive, parties were overall able to campaign and civil society enhanced accountability.’
“Parties and candidates were overall able to campaign, with freedoms of assembly, expression, and movement broadly respected.
“On Page 5, the report noted that the EU EOM media monitoring over 46 days showed federal government-owned media’s commitment to balanced election coverage.
“It said that positively in almost all observations party agents received copies of the results forms, adding that the National Collation Centre for the presidential election was open to party agents and observers, and was continuously televised.
“Again on page 37, the report said the national collation centre for the presidential results was open to party agents, observers and the media with each state’s results projected on a large screen,” Shehu said further.
During the news conference, the EU Deputy Chief Observer, Hannah Roberts said the EU EOM was not aware that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, had a server that was allegedly used to transmit results of the 2019 general elections.
Recall that the opposition party, Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and its Presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakr, had claimed that an INEC electronic server was used to transmit results of the election.