The Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS delegation on election monitoring has expressed their confidence that the Nigerian General elections would be free and fair.
The Team Leader of the ECOWAS Delegation to Nigeria and the Former President of Sierra Leone, Ernest Bai Koroma disclosed this when the ECOWAS Delegation visited the Nigerian Chief Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital.
Bai Koroma said that “it is their responsibility in keeping the peace and security to give support for every member state at moments like this, as they do to enhance democracy and more so because it is Nigeria’’.
According to him, Nigeria is the powerhouse of ECOWAS adding that they come with great expectations with great determination to give support to this process.
He said, “so that at the end of it all, what comes out becomes the will of the people of Nigeria”.
According to him, when that happens successfully in Nigeria they believe the rest of the ECOWAS countries will follow suit.
He noted of a woman who some years back, laid their blood and sweat in his home country, Sierra Leone to save their soul was a great sacrifice made and the sacrifice made in the spirit of sacrifice, whose success they are all celebrating today.
“Not only in theory but in ECOWAS. Believe it is in that same spirit of walking under the auspices of ECOWAS, supporting each other, that we are here as an observer of vision in their process of observing, and engaging with major stakeholders”, he said.
According to him, they have had discussions with the government, still expecting to have an engagement at the highest level, political parties, civil society, order stakeholders, and with the security outfit for them to hear from all of them.
The Nigerian Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor says Armed Forces are equal stakeholders because the elections are being conducted for them as a nation that they trust with election security.
General Irabor said that “it is the Nigerian police that is the lead agency with other paramilitary agencies at the forefront of election security provision, the Armed Forces are only providing residual support to the police on the account of this election for the security”.
According to him, this is so because the Constitution mandates them to give support to civil authority.
He noted that the Armed Forces were engaged in various operations across the country in the six Geopolitical zones in the country.
The Defence Chief said that “they are quite optimistic that the police and other security agencies who are the primary agents for elections, security duties will live up to the demand for the mandate under responsibility by the assessment that they have done adding that they have every confidence that the training they received will enable them to live up to that standard”.
He noted also that they have made contingencies and these contingencies they have also shared with them that should it become necessary for them to give additional support when the need arises.
He added that the police and other security agencies that are charged with these responsibilities would certainly perform optimally.
“No doubt you will still see a military presence. It is not because it is the election. It is because we have subsisting operations across the country, which are known to even the members of the public. And I believe that of course for the ECOWAS team that is here in the light of the fact that the UK was introduced right here in Abuja, so you are seized with all the issues with our internal security operations. So I like to assure you that our professional standing is that we are confident that we know what will make a big military call out in whatever circumstance. We also believe that as part of your monitoring, which we have alluded to, yes, let’s see, the fact that you’ve engaged with the political actors, which we also believe that they are men and women who of course, desire good for our country. So they will have grids in control of your supporters, for them to play the rule by the game. We are quite eager to see the conduct of the elections and the outcome afterward. I believe that to make for our good for the greater good of ECOWAS and the rest of the world’’, he added.
The visit had the ECOWAS delegation team and senior Officers of the Armed Forces of Nigeria
Dominica Nwabufo
