ABUJA (Sundiata Post) – The European Union (EU) Observer Mission for Nigeria’s 2015 general elections has described President Goodluck Jonathan’s concession to defeat in last weekend’s presidential election as extraordinary, worthy of emulation by African countries.
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It said Jonathan was a good example to the world following the manner he conducted the polls and conceded victory to his opponent without rancour.
Jonathan had on Tuesday, just as collation of votes was ending, called his main challenger in his re-election bid, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) at 5.15 p.m. congratulating him for winning the presidential election.
The leader of the EU Observer Mission, Mr. Santiago Fisas, who led a delegation of the Mission to present an interim report of its findings to the President at the Aso Rock Villa, commended Jonathan, describing him as an example to Africans and the world.
Speaking on the purpose of their visit, Fisas said, “I congratulated him for that and I seized the opportunity to give to him our preliminary report about the election, that he was very happy and of course I will come back in July with the final statement at a press conference and to give it to the new president our recommendations as would be contained in the final reports”.
On the likelihood of President Jonathan getting any prize like Nobel for agreeing to hand over, he said, “The elections are so important for the people of Nigeria, but is an African example for all Africa and countries in the world. You know many people didn’t expect that the elections will be peaceful, they expected a lot of violence after the elections but it turned out not to be true.
“And also I congratulate President Jonathan but I would like to congratulate Nigerian people because they showed a lot of commitment to that election. Not in all circumstances would you see such, that people stood in the sun for a very long and hot day, despite some problems. Even at that, you were there, it shows that you Nigerians are truly democratic”.
On how Nigeria can get its elections right, Fisas said that the Mission hopes to conclude its final report within two months and submit it to either President Jonathan before he leaves office or to Buhari after his inauguration.
He explained that it would remain at the discretion of the Nigerian government to decide what recommendations to adopt or reject from the Mission’s findings about this year’s Nigerian polls.
He said, “We are observers and we have made our recommendations and I don’t want to advance the final report that will be finished after the gubernatorial elections, when we can embark on a new ideas with a new President, probably that will be in July, then we will make the recommendations public. But now we have only two recommendations and they are in the report”.
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