A Chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress and the immediate Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo SAN, has chastised those who are criticising President Bola Tinubu and his party APC, over the recent final report on the 2023 general elections in Nigeria, submitted by the European Union Elections Observer.
The report submitted to the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, by the EU members, at the Commission’s National Headquarters in Abuja last, mentioned some irregularities during the elections and suggested how they can be better handled in future elections in the country.
However, the report has been rejected by President Tinubu and the APC, describing it as a product of poorly done desk jobs, that heavily rely on few people. noting that it is just a “Jaundiced report,” based on the views of fewer than 50 observers.
Meanwhile, the comment of the APC on the report has caused a lot of reactions from the public and opposition parties who believed that the report has corroborated their earlier claims that the election was rigged in favour of Mr Tinubu.
Reacting to the claim by the people, who are calling for the cancellation of the election, Keyamo wrote on his Twitter account on Monday evening, “Declaring certain aspects of an election or electoral process as ‘flawed’ is not synonymous as saying the whole process was a cataclysmic failure. This is the simple difference a whole bunch of people have failed to realize.
“THERE IS NO SINGLE ELECTION IN THE ENTIRE WORLD THAT WOULD NOT RECORD CERTAIN COMPLAINTS OF IRREGULARITIES IN CERTAIN AREAS. The REAL ISSUE to determine is whether those supposed irregularities substantially affected the election to the extent that the loser(s) could have won or the winner could have lost. If you cancel an entire process each time some irregularities happen or are reported, we may conduct an election 100 times and no winner would be announced.
“It is only a forensic examination of the entire process by the judiciary that can determine the extent the supposed ‘irregularities’ affected the outcome of the elections. And there are legal rules already laid down to achieve this.
“The EU report is NOT (and cannot be) a document that tells you who won or lost an election. It only reports the ‘irregularities’ noticed and makes recommendations for improvement in future elections.
“Therefore, all the hoopla over that EU report is neither here nor there when it comes to legitimising or delegitimising the government of the day.”
“That power or responsibility belongs to the judiciary.
“I hope those who are now gyrating excitedly as if they are ‘speaking in tongues’ over the EU report will also have the spirit and ‘anointing’ to accept and embrace the actual forensic judgment by our properly constituted law courts when they eventually decide on the 2023 elections.
“Till then, as a very senior member of the Bar, I hold my peace and I say no more.”
