Nigeria’s Stability Crucial To Regional Peace -ECOWAS

 The Economic Community of West African States has urged Nigerians to ensure that the rescheduled 2015 general elections are held peacefully in the interest of regional peace.

President of the ECOWAS commission, Ambassador Kadre Desire Ouedraugo, said this when he paid a courtesy visit to the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Maj.Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, in his Abuja office on Wednesday.

The diplomat said ECOWAS, like the rest of the international community, was interested in the peaceful conduct of the elections because of Nigeria’s strategic position in regional and international affairs.

Ouedraugo said, “We have decided to meet all stakeholders in the election to have your views of the electoral process. Peace and stability is essential for development and progress of Nigeria and the entire region. We would count on everyone to make sure that we have peaceful elections.

“As you are aware, the mandate of ECOWAS is to monitor and observe all general elections in our member states and for us elections in Nigeria are special.

“They are of great importance for peace and stability to our region and this is the reason why the chairman of the authority, together with all ECOWAS institutions, is following very closely the electoral process in Nigeria.

“On his behalf and on behalf of my delegation and my behalf we want to thank you and express our gratitude to you on the efforts made to have peaceful elections in Nigeria. We have decided to deploy an observer team of 250 persons to Nigeria and we have decided to deploy a long term observation mission. They were deployed on 20th January in the geopolitical zones of Nigeria.”

He expressed gratitude to the APC flag bearer for conducting himself peacefully like the statesman that he is since the elections were postponed.

Ouedraugo further revealed that former Ghanaian president, Mr. John Kuffour would soon be in the country on a fact-finding mission before the March 28 date.

In response, Buhari, who was flanked by his vice presidential candidate, professor Yemi Osinbajo and other party chieftains, expressed gratitude to the African union, European Union, ECOWAS and the United states over the keen interest they have exhibited in the processes leading to the conduct of the general elections in the country.

He recalled how the national security adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki, dropped the hint for election postponement in spite of assurances by the Independent National Electoral Commission that it was ready to conduct the elections.

Buhari, however, acknowledged that the six weeks extension of the general elections was still in line with constitutional provisions.

Buhari said going by assurances given by President Jonathan that he would abide by the outcome of the elections, coupled with over seventy percent successes so far recorded in the distribution of the permanent voter cards, there is the hope that the elections would be conducted in a free and fair manner.

While declaring his commitment to the Abuja peace accord, he said, “INEC has distributed 75-80 percent of the PVCs, Mr. President has made very encouraging comments weeks ago by saying he will swear in whoever wins.

“Even before the accord, we asked our supporters to be peaceful. We have continued to urge them to show restraint. We intend to maintain this pressure until this election takes place.”

Buhari also said multi-party democracy remains the best form of government, disclosing that his campaign train had already traversed 35 states of the federation to seek votes from the electorate.