Amaechi assures EU delegation that APC will not interfere with elections and Buhari will go if he loses

AVIATION minister Rotimi Amaechi has assured a visiting European Union (EU) delegation that the All Progressives Congress (APC) would not interfere with the conduct of next year's elections and that President Muhammadu Buhari would stand down if he loses.

In February next year, Nigeria goes to the polls with President Buhari seeking a second term as the APC's presidential candidate. His main challenger will be former vice president Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, who is standing as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate but there are fears that the government may not allow the elections to be free and fair.

However, Mr Amaechi, the director-general of the Buhari Campaign Organisation, met with the EU delegation led by Ambassador Ketil Karlsen yesterday and sought to allay such fears. He assured them that the APC would adhere strictly to the electoral laws and President Buhari will accept the outcome of the elections.

Mr Amaechi said: “One assurance I will give you today is that we’ll stand by the Independent National Electoral Commission (Inec) and we will stand by whatever decision they make. We believe that we promised Nigerians change and I also believe that you can observe the change.

“By this time in 2014/2015, when I was still in office as governor, I was on fire as everybody was on my neck. The then president had withdrawn my security, my aide-de-camp (ADC) and chief security officer were on the run, there was no police security and nobody cared.

"They didn’t bother that I could be killed or attacked as I was attacked several times but now, we believe the president that they were accusing that would be undemocratic because he is a retired soldier is more democratic than a civilian that was elected in the past. During the Anambra State election, when the governor cried out that his ADC had been withdrawn, President Buhari ordered that he be reinstated immediately, so you see, that is the change we are talking about."

Ambassador Karlsen told Mr Amaechi that the EU would partner with Nigerians to organise credible polls in 2019. He added that the EU, was only concerned about the best electoral practices for Nigeria.

He said: “For the EU, we really do not have any preferred candidate, we don’t have any preferred political party and we don’t promote any particular ideology in Nigeria. We are very concerned about having the best possible process in the country and we want to see free, fair, credible and peaceful elections.

"This is why we have invested not only our time but also a lot of European tax payers’ money in engaging with all the Nigerian stakeholders since 1999. We have spent more than €100m in giving support for electoral process.

"We support Inec, we support the National Assembly, we support intra-party democracy and we support all stakeholders. We had also engaged actively in the party primaries and this gives us reason about the optimism of Inec to conduct elections.”