Miguna Miguna, a staunch ally of Kenya’s opposition chief Raila Odinga has condemned the former Prime Minister over Friday’s (March 9, 2018) peacetalks with President Uhuru Kenyatta.

In a statement issued barely hours after photos of the Kenyatta-Raila meeting were circulated, Miguna – currently in Canada, said he rejected Odinga’s betrayal of the People of Kenya.

“I have been advised of media reports that the People’s President, Raila Amolo Odinga has “reconciled” with the despotic president Uhuru Kenyatta. I understand that Mr. Odinga has further stated that the “conflict is over” and called on the country to “reconcile and move on.

“Mr. Odinga’s unilateral, irrational and erratic decision to betray the fight for electoral justice, the culture of impunity and the flagrant abuse of human rights that have become routine under the illegitimate regime of Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto cannot be justified,” he wrote.

His statement listed a litany issues ranging from deadly violence during and in the aftermath of the last electoral cycle – between August – October 2017 as the more reason that the said peacetalks were unjustified.

“Between July 2017 to the present, Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto have murdered more than 380 innocent civilians in cold blood. These martyrs were butchered by agents of the illegitimate Jubilee administration they were perceived to be “supporters” of Raila Odinga,” he said.

He went as far as describe the Odingas and Kenyattas dominance in Kenya politics as a case of decades of monarchy. “The ‘bridges” Raila Odinga and Uhuru Kenyatta are talking about and intend to build will turn Kenya into an authoritarian and despotic Kenyatta and Odinga Monarchy.”

He stressed that the “reconciliation” betrayed the principles for which a banned political group, the National Resistance Movement Kenya (NRMKe) was established. He said the fight for electoral and social justice, the protection of and respect for the constitution and our fragile democracy, respect for the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary, had been compromised.

Miguna, was deported to Canada in January after leading the swearing-in ceremony of Raila as ‘The people’s president.’ The government said he held a Canadian passport and had denounced his Kenyan citizen.

A High Court has since overruled the government’s move and ordered that Miguna be allowed back into the country. He said he was due back in the country on March 26, 2018 “so as to continue the struggle for electoral justice and the culture of impunity that both Raila Odinga and Uhuru Kenyatta now represent.”

Africa News

It was the other way round. Just three years ago, my friend and publisher of the  Ghanaian Chronicle, Kofi Coomson, had almost given up on Ghana. He wanted to move.

After only one term, John Mahama’s government had brought the country to the brink and Ghana was, once again, near its second major wave of emigration after the first in 1982. Corruption was rife and poverty – worsened by the devaluation of the cedi and the fall in commodity prices – was widespread.

Coomson wanted out. A survivor of Jerry Rawlings’ dictatorship, during which period he was forced to go into exile for his uncompromising journalistic work, Coomson had seen hardship, but feared something worse was coming.

For some reason, the election of President Muhammadu Buhari reawakened in him hope for a revival in Ghana, where the general election was about 18 months away at the time.

Even before Buhari was sworn in in May 2015, Coomson would call me nearly every week and tell me just how Buhari’s post-election fever had caught on in Accra.

At last he would say, here was a man who would not only bring change to his country but one whose moral force would shake things up in West Africa and around the continent.

What happened?

That fever is gone, disappearing almost without a trace as Buhari arrived in Accra on Tuesday to join celebrations for Ghana’s 61st independence anniversary.

Home and away, hope and expectation have been replaced by a nagging feeling of anger, regret and disappointment.

Coomson’s question, What happened to Buhari?, is not being answered in Abuja and might never honestly be. But by some strange twist of fate, that question is being answered in Accra, where President Nana Akufo-Addo is showing what is possible when preparation and effort meet opportunity.

It’s the other way round. I’m now in my Coomson season, wondering exactly what I’m doing here and whether I should not be going to Accra.

In just over one year of taking office as president, Akufo-Addo has inspired the sort of confidence that Ghanaians were looking for in Buhari; and Nigerians are taking lesson notes and sharing videos of what might have been, if Buhari had the quality they thought they voted for three years ago.

Even after he reluctantly visited Taraba, where dozens had been murdered in a farmers-herders clash months ago, to condole with the bereaved on his way to Accra, the dust stirred by his words unsettled the shallow graves of the dead, dispirited the grieving and trailed him all the way.

Sometimes you don’t know which one to choose: Buhari’s speech, his silence or his indifference.

Cousins, all

It’s not just a Nigerian thing; quality appears to be missing around much of the continent. South Africa’s Jacob Zuma did not understand the difference between the state treasury and his own wallet; and until Robert Mugabe was led out like a bull out of Zimbabwe’s china shop, ordinary Zimbabweans bore the brunt of his misrule, including paying for the First Lady’s fake doctoral thesis.

Yet, if Zuma and Mugabe are past, a good number of such rulers are still present tense: from Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea to Paul Biya of Cameroun, and from Denis Sassou Nguesso of the Republic of Congo to Yoweri Museveni of Uganda – leaders who give old age a bad name and don’t care by what name they or their countries are called.

in a recent video on leadership on the continent, Mo Ibrahim described them as leaders who are not only too old to lead but are also determined to take their countries with them to their graves.

Bright spot

At 74, age is not on Akufo-Addo’s side, but he appears to hold out a different promise from the club of gerontocrats. I’ve been following him with the same interest that my Ghanaian friend was following Buhari. It’s the other way round now.

I watched Akufo-Addo telling France’s President Emmanuel Macron when the latter visited Ghana in December, that even though Africa was grateful for the tons of aid pouring into Ghana and the continent, Africa should take responsibility for its own future.

The continent has had enough of carrying around a begging bowl for 25 percent of global development aid; its leaders must be held to account. His own stewardship in Ghana, he said, was not an exception.

Though Macron knows Africa well, the look of disbelief and shock and excitement on his face as Akufo-Addo spoke suggested that he had not heard an African leader speak with such candour for a long, long time.

The same thing happened during an international conference in Senegal on how to replenish funding for education, where Akufo-Addo narrated how his government’s free education programme up to secondary school level had led to 90,000 more children enrolling in high schools in less than one year.

While other African heads of state and government hardly noticed the passing away of Hugh Masekela during the January meeting of the AU in Addis Ababa, the significance of Bra Hugh’s contribution to global music, culture and entertainment was not lost on Akufo-Addo. On his way back to Accra, he stopped over in Johannesburg where he paid his last respects to Hugh and other African greats, including Fela, who had gone before him.

It was the Ghanaian president’s speech at the US National Governors 2018 Winter Meeting in Washington in February, that cleared any remaining doubts that he was a serious guy.

In a speech that earned him a standing ovation and one that should have made every African proud in the same country where President Donald Trump had cast a slur on the continent only a few months earlier, Akufo-Addo repeated his theme of responsible and accountable leadership, saying in clear terms that trade was better than aid.

He has shown it in Ghana. The economy has grown from 3.6 percent in 2016 to 7.9 percent in 2017.

The cedi has stabilised and inflation reduced from 15.6 per cent at the end of 2016 to 10.3 percent last year. “Nuisance taxes” have been abolished and emphasis is now on production and improvement of infrastructure.

And without making too much noise, the Ghanaian president appointed a Special Prosecutor, the first in the country’s history, to deal with matters of corruption “and hold public officials, past and present, accountable for their stewardship” of public finances.

Not by size

Ghana is small, and by comparison, far less complex than, say, Nigeria or South Africa. It’s not even among Africa’s Top 10 economies. If, however, size and complexity were disincentives to growth and development, then India, the world’s largest and arguably most complex democracy, would not be among the world’s top 10 economies. With general elections coming up in 31 or so African countries in the next 18 months, from Sierra Leone to Gabon, from South Africa to Senegal and from Mali to Nigeria, the worst disservice citizens can do to themselves and their children is to stand idly by.

The Africa of Muhammadu Buhari, Paul Biya and Teodoro Obiang Nguema, is also the Africa of Nana Akufo-Ado.

Poor leadership deserves a red card: There’s no other way around it.

 

 

It is no longer a secret that there is an unsavoury muscle-flexing competition going on between the Presidency and the two chambers of the National Assembly. The situation has become so bad that President Muhammadu Buhari recently lamented that the legislative arm of the Federal Government is responsible for much of the slow pace of governance which he has been accused of.

The Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, however, debunked that notion recently when he averred that the Senate has only rejected 13 out of the 227 nominees it has received from the President’s table in its three years in office.

This, however, does not neutralise the fact that the Red Chamber, which is constitutionally mandated to confirm certain categories of presidential appointments, has frozen confirmation of appointees from the Buhari-led Executive as a result of the latter’s insistence on retaining Mr. Ibrahim Magu as the Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, even after the Senate turned down his confirmation twice based on adverse reports from the Department of State Services, DSS.

The problem has even been noticed by international stakeholders such as the International Monetary Fund, IMF, which has called on the Senate to confirm the appointments of members of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN’s, Board of Directors and Monetary Policy Committee, MPC, members to enable them join in the efforts to strengthen the economy which is just climbing painfully out of recession.

When the face-off over Magu arose early last year, we had enjoined the Presidency to seek the Supreme Court’s interpretation of Section 171 of the 1999 constitution as amended which deals with the class of presidential appointees that need the Senate’s confirmation rather than resorting to self-help and deciding that the EFCC Chairman does not need.

The fallouts of this faceoff have confirmed the old saying that two wrongs do not make a right. When the Presidency and the Legislature decide to engage in power show, it is smooth governance that suffers as we have seen.

The lesson in this matter is that each arm of government must respect the powers of other arms while exercising its own with utmost sense of responsibility. Presidential democracy, while emphasising separation of powers also demands cooperation among the arms for effective operation of governance.

The President and the leadership of the National Assembly should dialogue and break the deadlock to reopen the channel of cooperation between them. Whenever there are doubts over any sections of our laws, the Judiciary is there to clarify them as the constitution demands.

Since the Legislative and Executive arms of the Federal Government are controlled by the same All Progressives Congress, APC, we call on the Party to intervene on this matter in the overall interests of the nation.

Vanguard

The leadership of Social Democratic Party (SDP) has pledged to restructure the country, ensure equity, justice and zero tolerance to corruption if wins the Presidency in 2019.

The party disclosed the programme on Thursday in Abuja during the inauguration its National Working Committee (NWC).

In his address, the National Chairman of tue party, Chief Olu Falae lamented the dearth of leadership in the country, noting that the SDP would address fundamental challenges bedeviling the Nigerian state when elected into power. He assured that the party is irrevocably committed to justice, fairness, democracy, accountability and has zero tolerance for corruption, adding that the SDP government will go all the way to ensure international cooperation to build a common humanity, within a secure and peaceful world order.

“The SDP shall tirelessly pursue effective implementation of restructuring the Nigerian federation and reconciling the various peoples so as to achieve peace, harmony, security, Defence and stability. “We shall grow and transform the national economy the national economy to be dynamic, productive and sustainable, so as to generate incomes, create jobs and produce prosperity for all Nigerians.

“We shall raise Nigeria’s Defence capabilities in order to ensure effective Defence, peace and security,” Falae stated even as he stressed the preparedness of the party to “refine Nigeria’s foreign policy to promote international cooperation, trade and a peaceful world order.”

Falae reassured that under an SDP government, Nigeria will witness an “Accelerated power generation, power transmission, and power distribution to provide the essential energy requirements for national development.” The newly inaugurated NWC has former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Chief Olu Falae as National Chairman while Dr. Abdul Ahmed Isiaq is the Deputy National Chairman.

Also on the NWC are Shehu Gabam (National Secretary), Dr. Junaid Muhammed (National Vice Chairman), Barrister Joseph Abu (National Legal Adviser) and Comrade Stanley Nwakanma (Youth leader). Others included Chief Nnamdi Clarkson (National Treasurer), Akinbode Oluyemi (National Publicity Secretary) and Barrister Emeka Atuma (National Organizing Secretary).

The event attracted newly decamped chieftains of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) including ex-Information Minister, Professor Jerry Gana and erstwhile Nigeria’s Ambassador to Germany and former Education Minister, Professor Tunde Adeniran.

Daily Times

 

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) recently announced dates for general elections in the country for the next 36 years, from 2019 to 2055. The elections include presidential, gubernatorial and national and state houses of assembly. INEC Chairman Professor Mahmood Yakubu announced the dates at a consultative meeting with leaders of political parties in Abuja. He said the move was to engender certainty in our democratic system.

Yakubu said in 2019, the dates for the various elections are Feb. 16 and March 2; in 2023, Feb. 18 and March 4; in 2027, Feb. 20 and March 6; in 2031, Feb.15 and March 1. According to him, in 2035, it is Feb. 17 and March 3; in 2039, Feb.19 and March 5 and in 2043, Feb. 21 and March 7. “In 2047, it is Feb.15 and March 2; in 2051, it is Feb.18 and March 1; in 2055, it is Feb. 20 and March 6,” he said. Prof. Yakubu said in other democracies of the world, periods of elections were generally known and were not topics for speculation. He said the aim was to ensure certainty in the election calendar and allow for long-term planning by the commission and stakeholders.

This standardization, according to findings, greatly increased the speed of presidential elections and others without recourse to the convenience of any individual or group of persons. No wonder that INEC rolled out this elections timetable at a time the National Assembly is trying to change the sequence of 2019 elections. The legislators have already amended the Electoral Act and re-ordered the election arrangement in such a way that that of the National Assembly would come first and the presidential election last. Many groups have already faulted the reordering of the election, accusing the legislators of a self serving voyage. 

Also citing relevant sections of the Constitution, INEC through its chairman also said it would go ahead with its initial timetable for the 2019 elections with put presidential election first at a time the amended bill is before the president for assent.  From all indications, it is only the courts that would resolve the impasse in the event President Buhari declines to sign the amendment into law. INEC’s 36 year election timeline, coming at such a time, elicited varied reactions.

Announcing election dates so far into the future, especially when they are not backed by law, is a curious act and in the end many of the dates may not stand the test of time.  The most important thing to do at this time is to institutionalize the process with legal backing which would only come into effect when the Constitution is amended.

Rather than show-casing dates for elections far into the future which could be altered by other leaders of the electoral empire in the future, INEC should initiate a bill with a proposal that presidential election should hold on a certain day in a certain month in the election year.

For now INEC, National Assembly and Presidency should work together and resolve the issue at hand which revolves around which election should hold first next year. Time is not on our side.

Daily Trust

The International Monetary Fund (IMF), in its latest report on Nigeria, averred that despite the recovery of the nation’s economy from recession, more Nigerians were sliding into poverty. The Bretton Wood Institution’s report came a few days after the Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on National Social Investment Programme, Mrs Maryam Uwais, said that no fewer than 80 million Nigerians live in poverty.

This underscores the fact that the government is not oblivious of the debilitating and devastating poverty in the land. But despite this cognizance, is the government doing enough to liberate Nigerians from the smothering muscle of the demon of poverty?

Rather than throwing money at the problem of poverty, the government should emplace appropriate policies that would facilitate economic growth and engender employment generation. While the role of the government in cushioning the effects of poverty on the vulnerable is not debatable, the government needs to come to the realisation that it will fail to properly protect the poor if it does not first create an enabling environment for businesses to thrive.

Without businesses succeeding, there will not be enough tax revenue which the government would deploy to help the poor.

Poverty in Nigeria is rising principally because doing business in Nigeria is generally a nightmare. Businesses are going through a hard time and are forced to shed some of their workers because of the hostile operational environment. If an enabling environment is created for micro, small and medium scale businesses to thrive, a number of unemployed young people will be able to start their own businesses, which would result in the decline of poverty.

If the right environment is created by the government, big businesses will thrive, expand their operations and create employment opportunities for the youth.

Although in 2016 the Federal Government set up the Presidential Enabling Business Council whose activities resulted in the country moving up 24 points on the ease of doing business index published by the World Bank in 2017, the fact is that there still exist institutional barriers such as the squabbles among government agencies located at the ports which slow down the pace of doing business in the country. Till date, it takes almost forever for companies to clear their imported items at the ports. This hampers businesses. When businesses are hampered, the economy flounders and poverty flowers.

Then, the cost of doing business at all levels is on the increase. As the cost of doing business climbs up, so does the viability of businesses go down with the effect that many of the organisations reduce their operations and are forced to let go of some of their employees. So, a nexus exists between scaling down the cost of doing business and slowing down the rise of poverty in a country.

One of the ways the government can reduce the cost of doing business is to address the nation’s infrastructure deficit. Moving finished goods from one end of the country to another still costs a fortune because of the poor state of the roads and the near absence of the rail system. In spite of the fortune expended on electricity generation, companies still have to generate their own electricity because the electricity companies have yet to get their acts together.

So, the government should pull out all the stops to make businesses to thrive in Nigeria. When the government makes it easy for businesses to flourish, it indirectly prepares the ground for the citizens to move out of poverty, as many of them become productively engaged. It is a thriving private sector, not a stipend-sharing government, that holds the key to poverty reduction.

Tribune

The apex socio-political body of the Igbo, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, has said it will consult widely before taking any decision on the 2019 elections.

The Deputy National Publicity Secretary of Ohanaeze, Mr. Chuks Ibegbu, who disclosed this in a statement on Thursday, said the association’s position on the forthcoming elections would be based on the views of Ndigbo.

“The apex Igbo body will not take any decision on 2019 without subjecting it to the opinion, views, inputs and contributions from a wide spectrum of Igbo society,” Ibegbu said.

However, the Ohanaeze spokesman stressed that the body’s major concern at the moment was the restructuring of Nigeria.

He said, “Our main concern now is the restructuring of Nigeria in sync with other progressive groups and individuals in Nigeria. Once Nigeria is restructured, other things will fall in place.

“We want a level-playing ground for all sections of Nigeria; we want justice, equity and fair play. We want a Nigeria in which the bountiful talents of Ndigbo and other Nigerians will be fully realised. The nation as it is presently constituted kills initiative,” Ibegbu added.

Meanwhile, Ohanaeze Ndigbo has called on the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, to first disarm Fulani herdsmen before ordering licensed gun owners to submit them to the police.

Ibegbu, who stated Ohanaeze’s demand in the statement in Enugu, faulted the IG’s directive that all licensed gun owners should submit the firearms to the police.

“Without disarming the armed Fulani herdsmen, it will be inappropriate to tell licensed gun owners to submit them in the face of terror and attacks on innocent citizens in all parts of the country, especially in the Middle Belt and the South.”

The spokesman for the group, Mr. Okey Colbert, expressed regrets over what he described as the “unfortunate reduction of the killings in Benue, Taraba and Adamawa states to a mathematical contest of the number of casualty” by President Muhammadu Buhari.

“Maybe if his own children were butchered by hoodlums, he would know how other victims of the Fulani herdsmen terror feel too,” he noted.

Punch

Without batting an eyelid, Maikanti Baru, the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, told a bewildered nation last week that he had spent $5.8 billion importing petrol in just two months. This figure is likely to rise sharply since he says the NNPC’s petrol supply will rise from 55 million litres per day to 100 million lpd.  No sane country carries on wasting so much of its resources on importing a product it can so easily produce for local consumption and for export.

But this is a misadventure long foretold: this newspaper has for years highlighted the folly of relying on imports for refined petroleum products, while the 2018 national budget is anchored on a daily crude oil production of 2.3 million barrels. Stubbornly, against all economic reasoning, the government holds on to its four loss-making refineries, instead of selling them to competent private operators. Highest capacity usage was 42.4 per cent throughout 2017, according to the NNPC figures, with zero capacity recorded for some months at some refineries.

The Central Bank of Nigeria figures indicate that foreign reserves rose to $43.2 billion on March 6, the highest level since mid-2014. Significantly, the CBN just announced a drop in average national import bill to $1.9 billion monthly in the second half of 2017, down from $5.5 billion previously, following measures to curb certain types of imports.

While the House of Representatives in 2012 swiftly investigated the expenditure of N2.53 trillion on subsidy payments in the 2011 fiscal year, it is lukewarm about the $5.8 billion (and rising) spent in just two months that, at an official exchange rate of N305 to US$1, comes to N1.76 trillion, about the same amount that was identified by the Reps ad hoc committee as fraudulent, unbudgeted subsidy payments in 2011. It also represents about 20 per cent of the 2018 budget of N8.6 trillion.

Ibe Kachikwu, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, says Nigeria spends about $28 billion each year importing petroleum products. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, total value of exports from Nigeria in the second quarter of 2017 was N3.1 trillion, while spending an annual average of N3.35 trillion importing petrol. The NBS put the value of petrol imports in 2016 at N2.39 trillion. Worse, according to Kachikwu, 40 per cent of this is spent on “logistics.” We cannot afford this continued waste and crippling import dependence for everything, including goods in which we have comparative advantage. Already, the country spends $22 billion each year importing food, says Heineken Lokpobiri, the Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development, though it has adequate arable land and a rich diversity of cash and food crops.

President Muhammadu Buhari’s leisurely response to this fiscal haemorrhage is unhelpful; the bounce in the external reserves stock is attributable to higher crude oil prices. Our external debt stock on the other hand had risen to $15.35 billion by the end of September 2017 and is still rising fast as the government borrows furiously to fund capital projects and the budget deficit.

It is imperative to check the claims from the NNPC and the Petroleum Ministry: while Baru puts current demand at 60 million lpd, up from the 55 million litres he cited last month, Kachikwu claims a daily demand of 66 million lpd. But while other marketers were involved in importing petrol, 35 million lpd was supplied and largely met local demand and a thriving smuggling market to neighbouring countries. Convinced that widespread smuggling is responsible for persistent shortages, the NNPC visited the Nigeria Customs Service and submitted details of retail outlets close to the country’s borders to its Comptroller-General, Hameed Ali. Given the severity of the problem, Ali and other security agencies’ heads require presidential orders to move decisively to stop the smuggling trade.

Independent investigations should be undertaken urgently by the Presidency and the National Assembly into the petrol import system. Who verifies NNPC’s claims? The Reps probe in 2012 uncovered bogus claims by importers and opaque dealings by the NNPC. Today, despite higher import claims, many retail outlets have no stocks when there should be enough to use and more than enough to smuggle! According to the US Energy Information Administration, petroleum consumption in the neighbouring countries where our petrol is believed to have been smuggled to is: Chad 11.2 litres per capita or 2,200 barrels per day; Togo 13,000 bpd or 102.6 litres per capita; Niger Republic 14,000 bpd or 46.5 litres per capita; Benin Republic 41,000 bpd or 234.2 per capita; and Ghana 83,000 or 157 litres per capita. These markets combined cannot absorb the volume of petrol “missing” daily from Nigeria.

Top priority should be getting other marketers back to break the NNPC’s import monopoly. The news that landing cost per litre has dropped from N170 per litre to N161 per litre is enough to galvanise government to entice marketers back through transparent, competitive bidding. The NNPC should not be allowed to continue spending as it deems fit without strict oversight. Its plan to raise and spend another $1.8 billion for turnaround maintenance of its four dysfunctional refineries is surely precious money going down the drain, the latest in decades-long endless cycle of waste and graft that has never achieved the advertised target of full capacity utilisation or subjected to any acceptable standard of accountability. 

Sierra Leone’s March 7 general elections were generally peaceful and credible, the ECOWAS Election Observation Mission has said in its Preliminary Declaration.

“The preparation for the 2018 elections, the conduct of the campaigns, as well as the processes on Election Day, up until the release of the results of the four elections at the polling stations, were free, fair, and credible,” the 65-member ECOWAS Mission, headed by Prof. Amos Sawyer, Liberia’s former Interim President said in the nine-page Declaration he read at a Press Conference in Freetown on Thursday 8 March.

The Mission noted some challenges including the “presence of heavily armed military men at one polling centre”, the effects of the restriction on vehicular movement in the urban areas, and police presence at the collation centre of the opposition Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), which was eventually resolved.

However, the Mission said the challenges observed “do not diminish the transparency, fairness or the credibility of the electoral process at this point in time.”

Prof Sawyer said the “vast majority of qualified Sierra Leonean population,” who wished to vote or be voted for was provided the required space to exercise their constitutional rights.

The Mission “will continue to closely monitor the concluding phases of the electoral process, in particular the transmission of the results and supporting materials to the National Tallying Center, as well as the processing and declaration of provisional results” the Declaration said.

The Mission urged the National Electoral Commission (NEC) to release results of the presidential, parliamentary and local council polls as soon as possible and also cautioned against “speculating on or declaring unofficial results.” 

The ECOWAS Mission called on all candidates and their supporters to continue to respect due process and the rule of law, and also urged “resort only to legal means to seek redress of any grievances emanating from the electoral process.”

In his remarks, ECOWAS new Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security Gen. Francis Behanzin congratulated Sierra Leoneans for their political maturity in holding four important elections on the same day.

He said the feat and successful elections in other member countries would serve as a reference point for the consolidation of democracy in the region.

The conference was attended by other International Observation groups, including ex-president John Mahama (Commonwealth) and former president Kgalame Motlanthe (AU) 

Also present were  Dr Mohamed Ibn Chambas, head of UN Office for West Africa and the Sahel, members of the diplomatic corps, NEC Sierra Leone Chair Mohamed Alie-Conteh and Cllr. Yvette Chesson-Wureh, International President of the Women’s Situation Room, 

NEC has called for patience on the release of official results, explaining that presidential run-off vote will take place two weeks after the announcement of the results, if none of the 16 candidates wins the mandatory 55% votes in the first round.