The Presidency on Sunday refuted the European Union’s final report on the February 25 presidential elections.
According to a statement signed by the President’s Special Adviser on Special Duties, Communication and Strategy, Dele Alake, “We strongly reject, in its entirety, any notion and idea from any organisation, group and individual remotely suggesting that the 2023 election was fraudulent,”
The presidency alleged bias and an intention to “impeach the integrity of the 2023 elections” which it described as the “best organised general elections in Nigeria since 1999.
The Presidency faulted the data-gathering technique employed in the report, saying, “While addressing journalists in Abuja on the so-called final report, Andrews noted that EU-EOM monitored the pre-election and post-election processes in Nigeria from January 11 to April 11, 2023, as an INEC accredited election monitoring group.
“Within this period, EU-EOM observed the elections through 11 Abuja-based analysts, and 40 election observers spread across 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.”
“With the level of personnel deployed, which was barely an average of one person per state, we wonder how EU-EOM independently monitored elections in over 176,000 polling units across Nigeria,” Alake queried.
Consequently, the Presidency insisted that the 2023 general elections, “most especially the presidential election, won by President Bola Tinubu/All Progressives Congress, were credible, peaceful, free, fair and the best organised general elections in Nigeria since 1999.”
It added that “There is no substantial evidence provided by the European Union or any foreign and local organisation that is viable enough to impeach the integrity of the 2023 election outcomes.”
Describing the findings as “unfounded,” the Presidency said, “We can now categorically let Nigerians and the entire world know that we were not unaware of the machinations of the EU.”
“We are convinced that what EU-EOM called the final report on our recent elections is a product of a poorly done desk job that relied heavily on a few instances of skirmishes in less than 1000 polling units out of over 176,000 where Nigerians voted on election day,” it concluded.