The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Geoffrey Onyeama, has told the diplomatic community not to cross the line between exhorting Nigeria on good governance and dictating to the country how to govern.
This advice was handed down by the Minister of Foreign Affairs while briefing the diplomatic community on the rescheduled general elections in the nation’s capital, Abuja.
The meeting which held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was to interact with the diplomatic corps to clarify issues surrounding the postponement of the elections and the country’s readiness as the polls come up on Saturday, February 23rd, 2019.
In the run-up to the elections, the Federal Government had on several occasions raised concerns about what it described as interference from foreign bodies.
Onyeama said, “At the end of the day, we are a sovereign nation and the line shouldn’t be crossed from exhorting us and wanting us to succeed and wanting this to be a really democratic process to dictating to us and really getting into the nitty-gritty of how we run the country which is exclusively the responsibility of this government”.
National Commissioner at the Independent National Electoral Commission, Mustapha Leki, who represented the INEC at the meeting, said the electoral umpire had taken responsibility for the postponement, admitting that the commission may have underestimated the job at hand.
He, however, said this time, the electoral body was ready for the polls.
“I must admit that we as a commission may have somehow underestimated the realities of preparing for such an extensive nationwide deployment for the 2019 general elections,” Mr Leki said.
While speaking on the readiness of security agencies for the polls, the Acting Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, said vote buyers, ballot box snatchers and touts would be arrested and prosecuted in accordance with the law while accredited observers will be protected and granted unfettered access across the country.
He said, “It is an electoral offence to snatch ballot box, it is an electoral offence to buy votes and it is also an electoral offence to be used as a tout to destroy properties.
“If you are engaged in that, there is no responsible security organisation that will sit back and look at you. We will arrest you”.