The Head of European Union Delegation to Nigeria, Amb. Samuela Isopi has said that the recent report of its independent election observation mission will not affect the EU-Nigeria relations, insisting that there are already talks on improving the existing strong relations.
Isopi disclosed this on Monday, 17 July, 2023 while briefing the media on 2023 Erasmus Scholarship Award programme to 135 Nigerians to study in various European countries.
She said the report of the EU Election Observer Mission is an independent one which the host country is at liberty to accept or reject.
She said presently EU leaders and Nigeria leaders are in talks on how to improve the already existing relationship.
She said: “European Union Observation Mission in Nigeria or anywhere else in the world, they provide an intensive, independent and impartial assessment of the electoral process. What does that mean, it means that they assess whether the electoral process was conducted in line with international, regional and also national obligation agreement of the conduct of the democratic election that the country has subscribed to.
“Election observation missions from the EU and any other International missions are not political and do not pursue any political objectives.
“The European Union as you know has a very strong and established worldwide methodology and experience and again it is a worldwide recognised actor in that field.
“It is not the first time that the Nigeria election body has invited the European Union to deploy an independent election observer mission; the EU has constantly been deploying election observation missions since 1999. I think this was the seventh one and everytime the mission had offered reports, the reports have been objective, and the purpose of those missions is to offer reports about what happened. And more importantly, to offer recommendations on how to improve the process, and then it’s up. It is the responsibility of the host country, the responsibility of the partner countries and elections management body to decide if they want to make use or not of the report.”
She added that: “Our experience with. Nigeria so far is that they have been very positive and the report of the International observation missions including the European Union have helped a lot and have helped guide the action and the report process.
“So I have no doubt that this will be the case also this time.
“The impact on our relationship, we don’t think that there will be an impact, we have very strong relations with the country and there have been phone calls between the leaders.”
She noted that EU “is also a partner to INEC providing technical and financial support and as far as we are concerned we want to continue to engage with the largest democracy in Africa and that is Nigeria and we will continue to cooperate with Nigeria”.
