The United States (U.S.) government has asked Nigeria to respect the outcome of the general elections in February and March this year.
Public Affairs Officer, U.S. Consulate General in Lagos, Joseph Kruzich, gave the charge during a panel discussion on “Youth Involvement in the Democratic Process,” organised by the U.S. Consulate General in Lagos.
He affirmed that the U.S government is interested in seeing that “there is fair, democratic, transparent, and credible elections, which is free of violence and intimidation,”
Kruzich added that, “We want to encourage all people to refrain from any type of violence or intimidation and also to respect the results of the free, fair and credible elections.”
According to him, the event was organised as “It’s very important that the youths of Nigeria are participating in the democratic process.”
He said that 70 percent of the population of Nigeria are youths, adding that Nigeria has one of the largest youth population in the whole world.
“So, it’s vital that the youths of Nigeria participate in the democratic process because a lot of the decisions that will be made by the next government will impact them in their future generations of Nigeria for decades to come,” he added.
He said that it is always vital that a large majority of the people exercise their civic duty and “vote and so, that is one of the reasons why we wanted to do this event. “
Noting that that the U.S. government “does not have a preference for any candidate or any party, or any policies in particular,” the US official added: “We want to tell all Nigerian youths and citizens about what our expectations for this elections are. We want to see that there is fair, democratic, transparent, credible, elections that is free of violence, and free of intimidation. We encourage all people to refrain from any type of violence or intimidation and also to respect the results of the free, fair and credible elections.”
While underlining that there will be a part of some international observation efforts during the presidential and governorship elections, Kruzich said: “We will work with a lot of our allies and friends from around the world, in Africa and in Europe, to be part of the observation process. We will work with INEC and the Nigerian government.”
