Breaking News: ECOWAS Warn President Goodluck Jonathan, Gen Buhari

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has reportedly issued a dire warning to President Goodluck Jonathan and Gen Muhammadu Buhari ahead of the country’s elections.

ECOWAS cautioned President Jonathan and the presidential candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC) Gen. Buhari to desist from using hate speech capable of overheating the polity.

This was made known to ThisDay State House correspondents on Monday by the commissioner for political affairs, peace and security at the commission, Salamatu Suleiman.

He made the disclosure shortly after the commission’s team visited President Goodluck Jonathan at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

“The President of ECOWAS (Ouedraogo) said the observers went to all the different geo-political zones and they made observations on issues relating to distribution of Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVCs) and other issues. These issues as the President said were deemed necessary to share with the President of the country (Jonathan), INEC and the leading opposition party, the APC. One of the issues is that our long term observer missions noticed that there was a lot of hate media, hate speeches being distributed, it is not good for our polity and is heating up the polity,” he said

The ECOWAS  president, Kadre Desire Ouédraogo, has reportedly spoken to all stakeholders to look into inflammatory statements and desist from making them during the electoral process, insisting that it is an aspect the media can help greatly in addressing.

“This is a very important election for Nigeria; Nigerians are concerned, ECOWAS Community is very much concerned that it all comes out very well and that we all owe it as a duty to say very positive things that can move this nation forward,” Suleiman said.

Speaking earlier at the meeting, Ouédraogo explained that the organisation’s mandate is to monitor and observe all the electoral processes within its community, adding that for that reason it has sent a fact-finding mission to Nigeria led by John Kufuor, former president of Ghana.

Ouédraogo said ECOWAS had set up long term observation groups that were deployed to five geo-strategic zones of Nigeria and made their reports.

“Inspite of the postponement of the elections, there was a de-briefing with them and we think is us necessary to share their observations with all the stakeholders and it is in that respect of that we came this morning to inform His Excellency about the findings and recommendations of our fact- finding mission. We are going to engage with all the stakeholders, the APC candidate and INEC to share with them the findings if our observation mission.We have also issued a declaration following the postponement of elections, appealing for calm and understanding and also appealing to all authorities to make sure the constitution is respected,” he said.

In a similar call, chief observer of the European Union (EU), Santiago Fisas, also called on President Jonathan to reaffirm his commitment to the May 29 deadline to hand over power to a new government.

Speaking to State House correspondents immediately after the EU team met with Jonathan at the Presidential Villa, Fisas said as the EU Chief Observer, he is mandated to meet with all the candidates for the elections.

“I met twice with Gen. Buhari and today yesterday President Jonathan very kindly accepted to receive me and my team, the EU Ambassador, the Deputy Observer European Union, colleagues, just to have exchange of views about the elections. I am very happy to be assured by the President that the inauguration of the next president will take place on May 29th. I think this is very good news because this is constitutional,” Fisas said.

When Fisas was asked if he believed what President Jonathan told him, he said ‘yes,’ adding that he has no reason to doubt the president, especially as he spoke publicly to them and to journalists.

The chief observer, who hinted that the delegates also asked the president questions on the security situation, said: “Jonathan assured that in a very short period of time the security situation will improve a lot.”

Meanwhile, it is not only the ECOWAS that has made its stand on peaceful and violence free polls. The APC gubernatorial candidate in Sokoto state, Aminu Tambuwal, has also assured the electorate that next month’s general polls will be peaceful, free and fair.