Former Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, has berated those rejoicing over the European Union (EU) report on the 2023 election.
Recall that the EU in its final report on the 2023 general polls said that the exercise exposed the enduring systemic weaknesses, and therefore signaled a need for further legal and operational reforms to enhance transparency, inclusiveness, and accountability.
In a statement via Twitter on Monday, Keyamo said there is no single election in the entire world that would not record certain complaints of irregularities in certain areas.
However, the irregularities that affected the election are not enough to claim that the losers could have won or the winner could have lost.
According to Keyamo, it is only a forensic examination of the entire process by the judiciary that can clearly determine the extent the supposed irregularities affected the outcome of the 2023 election.
He added that the EU report is not a document that tells who won or lost an election, instead, it makes recommendations for improvement in future elections.
He wrote: “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.
“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”
