The presidential, National Assembly, gubernatorial, and state house of assembly elections of 2023 in Nigeria may have come and gone, but their reverberations are far from ended.
There has been much speculation and ongoing discussions about the election process since its conclusion and the eventual declaration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, as the winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP), as well as their respective presidential candidates Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, were among the parties that filed petitions with the Presidential Elections Petitions Tribunal because they were unhappy with the results of the election.

Keep in mind that many Nigerians, especially the young people who showed up to vote for the first time, were dissatisfied with the amount of violence that marked the process.
Some local and foreign observation missions have criticised the elections for failing to meet even the minimal requirements for free, fair, and credible elections.
The APC, meanwhile, continues to insist that the elections were legitimate and accurately reflect the will of the people.
With the release of the final report on the findings of one of the foreign elections observer missions, the European Union Election Observation Mission (EU-EOM), on the February 25 and March 18 elections, the hornet’s nest surrounding discussions on the elections outcome appeared to have been stirred once more as the tribunal deliberates.
There were a total of 110 accredited observers from 25 EU member states, Norway, Switzerland, and Canada, who worked for the EU-EOM in Nigeria for three months beginning on January 11, 2023 and ending on April 11, 2023.
It’s interesting that they were sent to Nigeria by the country’s election commission.
After three months of observation across Nigeria, the Mission is glad to share its findings and suggestions, as stated by Chief Observer and European Parliament member Barry Andrews.
According to the study, which he said followed EU-EOM protocol, problems with the law and electoral administration hampered the holding of fair and transparent elections and eroded faith in the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
However, the Mission did make 23 suggestions to the Nigerian authorities in an effort to better future elections in Nigeria.
As Andrews put it, “we are particularly concerned about the need for reforms in six areas,” which the commission has identified as priority recommendations and which, if followed, “could contribute to improvement in the conduct of future elections.”
The report’s six top priorities are, in order, the elimination of legal ambiguities, the establishment of a publicly accountable selection process for the INEC members, the guaranteeing of real-time publication and access to election results, the bolstering of protections for media practitioners, the elimination of discrimination against women in political life, and the elimination of impunity for electoral officers.
Andrews also reemphasized the importance of open communication between all parties involved in electoral reforms in Nigeria, calling for better democracy there.
“The European Union stands ready to support Nigerian stakeholders in the implementation of these recommendations,” he argued.
Reactions to the report were varied.
Some well-intentioned Nigerians praised the report, stating that it just confirmed what most Nigerians already knew about the elections, while the presidency and most supporters of the ruling APC cried wolf about the report, calling it biassed and fake. Since the report was made public a few days ago, opinions have varied widely.
In a statement, Presidential Special Adviser on Special Duties, Communication and Strategy Dele Alake brushed off the findings as an attempt to mock Nigeria’s electoral system and its umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The body’s deficiencies and incapacity to undertake credible monitoring were highlighted in the statement, and it was stated that the methods that produced the report were flawed.
Alake described the report as predetermined, claiming that the EU-EOM had already shown prejudice against the system previously in the run up to the elections, and that the report was only compiled to validate the group’s existing bias.
Therefore, the presidency did not accept the report since it did not accurately portray the election as a whole and the presidential election in particular.
In addition, it stated that just 40 observers were sent to all 36 states and Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, and that the report was based on incidents at less than 1,000 of the total 176,000 polling units.
It also claimed that the general elections in 2023 were the freest and most credible since the country’s existing democracy was established in 1999.
With the quantity of staff deployed, which was just an average of one person per state, we question how EU-EOM independently supervised elections in over 176,000 polling units across Nigeria,” the statement from the presidency read in part.
We would like to know, and indeed ask the EU, how it came to the conclusions in the final report submitted, given the very limited coverage of the elections by their observers, who, without a doubt, relied more on rumours, hearsay, cocktails of prejudiced and uninformed social media commentaries, and opposition talking heads.
“We are certain that what EU-EOM labelled the final report on our recent elections is a product of a poorly done desk job that relied mainly on a few instances of fights in less than a thousand polling units out of more than 176,000 polling units where Nigerians voted on Election Day.
We have good cause to think that the negative assessment was written to support the same preemptive denunciatory posture seen in the EU’s preliminary report from March, which was based on the opinions of less than 50 observers.
We categorically deny any possibility that the 2023 election was tainted by fraud and condemn any and all suggestions to the contrary.
The administration, however, took comfort in the fact that independent election monitors from respected local and international organisations had deemed the most recent general elections to be the freest since 1999.
Others, however, argue that President Tinubu, who did not oversee the polls, had no business worrying about the EU-EOM’s findings.
People who took part in the polls believe that INEC and former President Muhammadu Buhari, rather than Tinubu, would have been in a better position to respond to the findings.
Journalist and policy expert Lemmy Ughegbe is one among many who believes this.
He was taken aback by Tinubu and his team’s response to the report and claimed it was merely a rehash of the findings of the situation room of the Nigerian civil society group regarding the election.
As a candidate, not an election official, Tinubu has me frightened. The INEC, and by extension, Buhari, should handle this matter; there’s no reason for him to become involved. Since he did not preside over the voting process, it is none of his concern. He advised that the president focus solely on matters of administration.
He continued, “The worry in all these is that Tinubu on inauguration day and thereafter has spoken as if the election was perfect, which is a disservice to honesty and a slap in the face of Nigerians, who participated in the elections and are witnesses.
Elections for both the National Assembly and the president took place simultaneously. For the National Assembly elections, INEC personnel had no trouble uploading results in real time, but a problem cropped up unexpectedly during the presidential polls.
If Tinubu and his team continue to portray the election as flawless, the next round of voting in 2027 is likely to be even more contentious. There is no such thing as a perfect human endeavour, but Tinubu and his men insist that theirs is.
Worse yet, I fear that people like Dele Alake do not realise that their responses only serve to fan the flames of the ongoing debate. They may have avoided further trouble by remaining silent.
To think that the elections that brought him to the presidency were fraught with irregularities and that he was prepared to commence electoral reforms on his inauguration day in 2007 is cause for concern and brings to mind the late Umar Musa Yar’adua, Nigeria’s patriot, the finest and noblest of gentlemen.
That is the way a noble person discusses issues like these. Human effort never results in a flawless product, yet Tinubu and his minions, including Alake, claim the elections were flawless. They were never flawless, and issues like voter suppression marred many of them.
The LP has also responded through its national press secretary, Obiora Ifoh, who has praised the study as being accurate and representative of the views of the voting public.
He said the White House’s attempt to undermine the study was an embarrassing failure.
PDP presidential candidate Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has issued a statement supporting the claim that the election was rigged in Tinubu’s advantage through his Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu.
The report’s conclusion that the election was plagued by anomalies and did not fulfil basic requirements of credibility was confirmed by him.
“Even the dead knew that the last elections lacked credibility,” Shaibu stated in a statement. Nearly five months after the election, not even the electoral commission has been able to explain why it has refused to put the complete results on its viewing page. Children in elementary school who did not participate in the election knew that INEC was incompetent and that Tinubu manipulated the results.
While rejecting the EU’s observation, Shaibu questioned why the government would accept billions of euros as an electoral fund.
‘The EU not only supplied training for the INEC workers, but it also donated equipment for the INEC to conduct the polls,’ he said. Given that the EU is the greatest single donor to the INEC, what possible justification could there be for Alake’s assertion that it has no right to speak? Instead of trying to defend the undefendable, Mr. Alake should keep his mouth shut.
Chris Nwandu, publisher of CNK news and public affairs analysts, said the response from the government was predictable.
You can’t assume the administration will praise the findings because they stood to gain from the contentious election.
“Pretty much every group that kept an eye on the polls, including the situation room made up of different CSOs and headed by Madam N. Obi, has called these polling days late.
How did they put it? They claimed that, despite INEC’s assurances, the presidential election result was not uploaded in real time, which is true because INEC itself has not denied it.
But the Federal Government, through Presidential Spokesperson Alake, is stating that you cannot throw out the results from nearly 176,000 polling units because of violations in a few thousand.
According to him, the number they’re discussing is significantly more than 10,000. He replied, “Look, the election was rigged and anyone who tries to deny that is attempting to be an ostrich and stick their head in the sand.
Additionally, he stated his disagreement with the presidency by adding, “These are independent observers; the EU observers are not Nigerians, who came to monitor the election and they wrote their report after the elections.”
My expectation was that the government would have accepted the outcome and begun exploring options to prevent a recurrence of the problem.
To paraphrase one observer, “The INEC should also sit down and take a holistic look at the report given by, not only the EU, but also other election observers who have also turned in their reports.”
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