WHAT ABOUT THE EU REPORT?

By

JESUTEGA ONOKPASA

The funny thing about all the “Obidients” and “Atikulates” hype about the recently released EU Report on the 2023 general elections is that nowhere does the report, itself, directly, indirectly, remotely or howsoever accuse:

1, INEC of rigging the election for President Bola Tinubu;

2. The APC of rigging the election for itself and President Tinubu;

Or,

3. President Tinubu of rigging the election for himself.

The report, though quite contrary to what actually transpired during the election in certain respects, is overall, basically a description of how an election would basically pan out in a developing country like Nigeria.

Just as it would be idiotic to expect a young Florence Otedola’s breakfast (I think she was born after her grandfather stopped being Governor of Lagos, therefore was born the granddaughter of a former State Governor) to be similar to that of the breakfast of the son of Sura the Taylor (if any breakfast, that is), and, just as it would be unrealistic to expect a school meal in Nice, France, to be similar to a school meal in Kandahar, Afghanistan (again, if any), it is moronic to expect an election in Nigeria to pan out as seamlessly as a Vatican Conclave to elect the Pope!

There is even no way you could possibly have an election in Luxembourg that could ever be indistinguishable from an election in Miami, Florida.

If your electorate are the nuns of the Missionaries of Charity of Calcutta, India, the election will go very differently than if the election was to elect a president for the National Association of Commercial Sex Workers (when they held their election some years back, it was reported that one candidate broke her rival’s head with a bottle)!

This is not at all a suggestion that one jurisdiction is inferior to another or that it is okay to accept shortcomings in elections – it is merely a statement of reality and an affirmation of realism, as well as an exposition of the false moral equivalence of white people who prejudicially tend to demand that the rest of the world, that they have vicariously (if not deliberately and directly), held back from economic and technological advancement, should nevertheless showcase the seamlessness obtainable in their countries.

There is nothing in the report that constitutes a question either Bola Tinubu or the APC has to answer and even many of the drawbacks it attributes to INEC arise from circumstances beyond its control.

There is absolutely nothing INEC could have done about poor electricity, naira confiscation, fuel scarcity, political thuggery or security lapses.

As for not uploading results in real time, INEC, itself, had days before the election announced that it would not be able to do that, quite apart from the fact that it was never obligated in law to do so!

Indeed, I just shook my head when Peter Obi’s lawyers were falling over themselves to enter the EU Report as an exhibit in his phantom case vide which he is only really trying to steal a mandate he pretends he is trying to reclaim.

All said and done, the EU Report is of absolutely no probative value whatever if the allegation is that the 2023 election was rigged.

More importantly, the report does not, howsoever, make any such claim.

*Onokpasa, a lawyer, was a member of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Presidential Campaign Council and writes from Abuja.