By Chukwudi Nweje and  Okwe Obi, Abuja

Two groups, Neo Africana Centre (NAC) and the Resource Centre for Human Rights and Civic Education (CHRICED), yesterday, knocked President Bola Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress (APC) over their reaction to the report of the European Union (EU) Election Observation Mission presented in Abuja last week.

In separate statements, the groups described the posture of the presidency as preposterous and an assault on the collective intelligence of Nigerians.

CHRICED Executive Director, Ibrahim  Zikirullahi, said the remarks of Dele Alake, special adviser to the President Bola Tinubu on Special Duties, Communications and Strategy on the report, was unwarranted.

Alake had rejected the report and described it as a poorly conducted desk job that relied on rumours. He said the report relied on  few instances of disruptions in less than 1,000 polling units, despite the over 176,000 polling units where Nigerians cast their votes on election day. He also claiemnd the report was targeted at Tinubu and the APC.

Zikirullahi, however, said the contributions of the EU on elections since 1999  to deepen Nigeria’s democracy cannot be dismissed with an ill-advised statement from the presidency.

He said instead of grandstanding and the sophistry deployed by perceived democrats, the presidency should put aside their egos and accept the flaws, which have made their so-called mandate questionable in the eyes of the public.

“ As a non-partisan observer of the electoral process and an advocate of democratic and governance reforms in Nigeria, CHRICED strongly condemns the recent onslaughts, including the ill-tempered press statement from the Presidency denouncing the EU EOM report.

“For us, the statement credited to the Special Adviser to the President on Special Duties, Communications and Strategy gives the impression to Nigerians and the international community that current power holders are unwilling to learn the key reform-related lessons from the 2023 General Elections.”

On its part, the Director of Public Affairs of NAC, Jenkins Udu,  wondered why the presidency had to put itself forward in a report that was directed at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and advised the presidency against actions or reactions that would suggest that it wants to sit in judgment over its case.

“We share in the concerns EU-EOM expressed about the shoddy conduct of the elections. Its position on the election is in tandem with the widely held view about the 2023 elections, particularly the presidential election. We find it rash, reactionary and unbecoming for the presidency to jump into the fray to denounce and discredit the report. The presidency is an interested party in this matter and should stay off the radar. The hasty attempt to impose its views on the report on Nigerians and the world at large should be viewed with suspicion and disapproval. The presidency should not pose as a judge in its case. Doing so will be preposterous and an assault on the collective intelligence of Nigerians.

“While we expect concerned bodies to make the best out of the report, we repudiate any hasty denunciation that seeks to reduce the report to a partisan piece of propaganda which it is not. It will be self-deceit for anybody not to acknowledge the damage which the non-transmission of the presidential election results in real-time inflicted on the credibility of the election. This major lapse cannot be swept under the carpet,” he said.

Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, however, said the report vindicated his position that the elections were flawed.

•One-sided narrative –Keyamo

Festus Keyamo, former minister of state for labour and employment, described the report as a “reflection of a one-sided narrative.”

The EUEOM in its final report on Nigeria’s general election had accused Keyamo of sharing fake news on February 12 by promoting information published by a suspicious website, accusing Labour Party (LP) candidate, Peter Obi of bribery.

“The story quickly became viral and was in a few hours debunked,” the report read.

In a statement, yesterday, he said the part of the EU report which referred to his sharing fake news is “presumptuous and outside their mandate and exposes a deep-seated bias about how the so-called observers went about their assignment.”

Keyamo accused the observers of singling out the All Progressives Congress (APC) while other local and international media had previously reported that all political parties pushed out some false stories.

“So, were they blind to the antics of the other parties? For instance, was there a single mention of tons of false reports by the PDP and LP that our candidate Bola Ahmed Tinubu (who is now president) was evacuated abroad for urgent medical attention at various moments during the campaign when there was no scintilla of evidence to back that up? Is that not fake news?

“Overall, the EU report is nothing but a reflection of a one-sided narrative. And I congratulate the opposition on working closely with the EU and carting away the all-important prize of the EU final report. For us, we shall make do with the consolation prize of the actual winner of the presidential election 2023.”

He said  the report is disappointing and unfortunate on the part of the observers as their first assignment is to observe and report, not to investigate claims made by candidates against one another.

“They are not journalists nor are they law-enforcement officers. Declaring any news as ‘fake’ when they don’t have alternative facts or findings by institutions statutorily empowered to investigate such claims is tantamount to taking sides on the campaign trail and trying to defend a candidate against another.

“Even professional journalists, law courts and law enforcement agencies, in the course of investigating any allegation, must talk to all sides before reaching a conclusion. Where is the evidence that the EU observers talked to those who made these claims and sought to get further clarifications before rushing to write their jejune report?

“They said I retweeted a story by a suspicious website. Pray, what makes a website ‘suspicious’? They did not elaborate. How can foreigners come into a country and declare a local news website as ‘suspicious’ (without more) and just walk away? What arrogance!”

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