The United States urges INEC to correct errors ahead of March 11 gubernatorial elections.
The United States has congratulated APC’s Bola Ahmed Tinubu for emerging as the winner of the 2023 presidential elections that were held on Saturday, February 25, 2023.
This was contained in a statement issued by the spokesperson for the State Department, Ned Price.
In the statement, he urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)to correct all the flaws witnessed in the exercise before the gubernatorial and state house of assembly election coming up on March 11.
The statement reads in part, “We understand that many Nigerians and some of the parties have expressed frustration about the manner in which the process was conducted and the shortcomings of technical elements that were used for the first time in a presidential election cycle. Nigerians are clearly within their rights to have such concerns and should have high expectations for their electoral processes.
We join other international observers in urging INEC to improve in the areas that need the most attention ahead of the March 11 gubernatorial elections.
There are well-established mechanisms in place for the adjudication of electoral disputes, and we encourage any candidate or party seeking to challenge the outcome to pursue redress through those mechanisms. We call on all parties, candidates, and supporters to refrain from violence or inflammatory rhetoric at this critical time.
We commend the active participation of civil society and the media in advancing electoral norms and political discourse on issues of importance to citizens. We note with concern reports that numerous members of the media were attacked during the course of the election, and we urge the government, security forces, political actors, and all citizens to respect the media’s critical role by refraining from any damaging acts when they do occur.
We also congratulate the Nigerian people, especially the large number of youths who are relatively new to the political process, for demonstrating their strong commitment to democracy”.