Dismissive reactions have continued to trail the final report of the European Union Elections Monitoring Mission as another ruling All Progressives Congress chieftain and former Minister, Festus Keyamo, said alleged irregularities in an aspect of an election do not and cannot invalidate the entire exercise.
The former Minister noted that as simple as this assertion appears, many have failed to understand the dynamics.
Keyamo argued that the EU report was neither here nor there with respect to the validity or otherwise of the last presidential election, contending that the power and responsibility to determine who wins an election belong to the country’s judiciary.
Keyamo stressed that based on these facts, there was nothing spectacular or that calls for jubilation in the controversial report.
The immediate past Minister of State for Labour and Employment’s reaction to the EU report was contained in a post on his official Twitter handle: @fkeyamo on Monday.
He tweeted: “Declaring certain aspects of an election or electoral process as ‘flawed’ is not synonymous as saying the whole process was a cataclysmic failure.
“This is the simple difference a whole bunch of people have failed to realise.”
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The tweet reads in part: “THERE IS NO SINGLE ELECTION IN THE ENTIRE WORLD THAT WOULD NOT RECORD CERTAIN COMPLAINTS OF IRREGULARITIES IN CERTAIN AREAS. The REAL ISSUE to determine is whether those supposed irregularities substantially affected the election to the extent that the loser(s) could have won or the winner could have lost. If you cancel an entire process each time some irregularities happen or are reported, we may conduct an election 100 times and no winner would be announced.
“It is only a forensic examination of the entire process by the judiciary that can clearly determine the extent the supposed ‘irregularities’ affected the final outcome of the elections. And there are legal rules already laid down to achieve this. The EU report is NOT (and cannot be) a document that tells you who won or lost an election. It only reports the ‘irregularities’ noticed and makes recommendations for improvement in future elections.
“Therefore, all the hoopla over that EU report is neither here nor there when it comes to legitimising or delegitimising the government of the day. That power or responsibility belongs to the judiciary.
“I hope those who are now gyrating excitedly as if they are ‘speaking in tongues’ over the EU report will also have the spirit and ‘anointing’ to accept and embrace the actual forensic judgment by our properly constituted law courts when they eventually decide on the 2023 elections.
“Till then, as a very senior member of the Bar, I hold my peace and I say no more.”
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