Buhari vs Atiku: EU speaks on preferred presidential candidatePublished on January 22, 2019
European Union (EU) has said it has no preferred candidate or party in the forthcoming presidential election.
It
made this position known on Tuesday at a press conference organised by
the EU-Election Observer Mission to Nigeria (EOM) 2019 in Abuja.
Chief
Observer of the Mission, Maria Arena, said the EU-EOM will only “come
with a fresh pair of eyes, looking just at the election process.
“We
are not interested in the outcome of the elections; we have no interest
in seeing this or that candidate or party win. We are here to observe
if the electoral process was conducted in a transparent and credible
manner,” she said.
On the objectives the EU-EOM is seeking to
achieve during the presidential election, Ms Arena clarified: “We have
the mandate only to collect information concerning the electoral process
and then to publish our findings and make recommendations.
“We
will assess the electoral process against Nigeria’s law and
international commitments in relation to Democratic elections. We are
completely independent in our conclusions.”
She further said the
Observer Mission is in Nigeria with a team of 11 experts in Abuja, and
40 long-term observers who have been deployed in pairs around the
country to cover all states.
“We are here in the spirit of
cooperation with Nigeria. We stand ready to deliver an impartial
objective assessment of the electoral process,” Ms. Arena said.
She
urged the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and the
security forces to provide clear real-time information on what they are
doing and the actions they have taken.
The Chief Observer advised
the government and political parties to play their part in promoting a
free, fair and peaceful process before, during, and after the election
day
Source:- Dailypostng
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