By Ayo Yusuf
Nigerians continue to react negatively to the final report of the European Union Election Observation Mission on the 2023 polls.
However, both the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, which conducted the presidential and National Assembly elections on February 25 and governorship and state houses of assembly polls on March 18 and other leading members of the society, have found faults in the EU report.
Fiery activist, Femi Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), recently joined the chorus of voices that have condemned the report as unrepresentative of the reality and patently inaccurate.
Speaking on Friday in an interview on Channels Television, Mr. Falana who said the report cannot be relied upon, said it smacks of colonial mentality for Nigerians to start celebrating or debating the EU mission report on the elections.
On Tuesday, the EU mission had presented its report on the general election in Abuja which it’s chief observer, Barry Andrews, said exposed enduring systemic weaknesses that needed to be corrected.
He said the report was based on analysis of Nigeria’s compliance with regional and international commitments for democratic elections.
The mission had accredited a total of 110 observers from 25 EU Member States, as well as Norway, Switzerland, and Canada.
Expressing the EU disappointed in aspects of the election, Mr Andrews said: “we are particularly concerned about the need for reform in six areas which we have identified as priority recommendations, and we believe, if implemented, could contribute to improvements for the conduct of elections.”
However, human rights lawyer Falana said there was nothing special or distinguished about the EU report that he saw. Indeed, he said the report by local media regarding the elections were “more credible” than what the EU election observers presented.
“I’m very reluctant to speak about the report of the EU observers team because it smacks of colonial mentality for us in this age and time to be celebrating the report of the EU observers,” he said.
“I have found reports in the local media much more credible than the report of the EU. We should not waste our time debating what the EU observers found.
“For instance, they were saying that about 97 people were killed. The local media have reported about 137 deaths and that has been confirmed by the human rights community.
“I can count other areas that one cannot rely upon.”
Mr Andrews said their report contained 25 recommendations for the nation including, removing ambiguities in the law; establishing a publicly accountable selection process for INEC members, and ensuring real-time publication of and access to election results.
Others are providing greater protection for media practitioners, addressing discrimination against women in political life, and addressing impunity regarding electoral offenses.
INEC Response
However, Independent National Electoral Commission has dismissed the EU reports as lacking specifics and thus too generalized about the issue of lack of transparency in the process to warrant worries.
Fielding questions on Channels Television, ‘Politics Today’ recently, the National Commissioner and Chairman of the Information and Voter Education Committee of INEC, Bar. Festus Okoye, pointed out that transparency issues mentioned by thr EU were more in the manner of generalized comments because INEC had been as transparent to key stakeholders in the election as it could be.
Bar Okoye added that, “We carried all the critical stakeholders along throughout the planning process for the 2023 general election. Before we released the voters register, and even after we completed the voters register, we engaged all the critical stakeholders, and when we converted our voting points and voting point settlements into full polling units, we carried everybody along.”
Explaining the exigencies under which the polls were conducted, Bar Okoye said “Even the EU made it very clear that the election was conducted in a volatile and very challenging environment, and that environment entails security challenges in many parts of the country; secondly, some of the INEC facilities were burned down, and we had to repair these facilities in a very emergency fashion; there were also challenges in different situations of the country relating to the naira redesign; and also relating to some of the transport companies we engage, so you have to look at these contexts in analyzing if INEC performed or not during the 2023 general election.”
