ABUJA (Sundiata Post) – The European Union has said President Goodluck Jonathan is sincere about the
May 29 date remaining sacrosanct and the next president of Nigeria would be inaugurated.
Also, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has tasked political gladiators in the country to desist from hate speeches and campaigns ahead of the forthcoming general elections.
Both bodies had separate audience with Jonathan at the Presidential Villa, Abuja on Monday.
Speaking to State House correspondents at the end of the meeting, Chief of Observer European Union, Santiago Fisas, said he was happy with the assurances from Jonathan that a new president would be inaugurated
on May 29 and that the security situations in the north east would improve before the general elections
on March 28 and
April 11.
Fisas said, “As the Chief of Observer European Union, I must meet with all the candidates for these elections. I met twice with Gen. Buhari and today President Jonathan very kindly accepted to receive me and my team, the EU Ambassador, the Deputy of Observer European Union and other colleagues, just to have exchange of views about the elections.
“I’m very happy to be assured by the President that the inauguration of the next president will take place
on May 29. I think this is very good news because this is constitutional”.
Asked if he believed the assurances coming from Jonathan, the EU Chief Obsever said, “Yes. I don’t see why I should doubt that. The President said that publicly and also to us. We asked questions on security and he said to us that in a very short period of time the security situation will improve a lot”.
President of the ECOWAS Commission, Kadre Desire Ouedraogo, and ECOWAC Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security, Salamatu Suleiman, who met with President Jonathan at the State House, earlier appealed to the Nigerian media to help curb the trend as it was unnecessarily heating up the polity, a development that does not augur well for the country.
They said these were the recommendations in the report of the ECOWAS fact-finding mission and long-term observation missions which the Commission established to monitor the Nigerian elections.
Ouedraogo said ECOWAS felt obliged to share these observations, including those on the distribution of the Permanent Voter Cards (PVC) with the major stakeholders, namely, the President, the main opposition party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
According to Ouédraogo, “ECOWAS by virtue of its mandate is to monitor and observe all the electoral processes in our community. To that effect we have sent a fact finding mission to Nigeria led by John Kufuor, former President of Ghana and later on we have set up a long-term observation that came into the country, they were deployed in the five geo-strategic zones of the country and they made their report.
“In spite of the postponement of the elections, there was a de-briefing with them and we have just thought it necessary to share observations with all the stakeholders and it is in that respect that we came this morning to inform His Excellency about the findings and recommendations of our fact- finding mission.
“We are going to engage with all the stakeholders, the APC candidate, INEC to share with them the findings of our observation mission.
“We have also issued a declaration following the postponement of elections, appealing for calm and understanding and also appealing to all authorities to make sure the constitution is respected”.[pro_ad_display_adzone id=”10″]
Explaining further the contents of the report, Salamatu Suleiman, Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security at the Commission said, “The President said the observers went to all the different geo-political zones and they made observations on issues relating to distribution of Permanent Voter Cards and other issues.
“These issues as the Prssident said we deemed necessary to share with the President of the country, INEC and other leading political party, the APC
“One of the issues is that our long term observer missions said there was a lot of hate media, hate speeches being distributed, it was not good for our polity and which was heating up the polity.
“And the President has spoken to all stakeholders to look into lessening this aspect in the electoral process and I think it is an aspect the media can help greatly in addressing.
“This is a very important election for Nigeria, Nigerians are concerned, ECOWAS Community is very much concerned that it all comes out very well and that we all owe it as a duty to say very positive things that can move this nation forward”.
