Nigeria’s Stability Crucial For Regional Peace -ECOWAS

The Economic Community of West African States has urged Nigerians to ensure that the rescheduled 2015 general elections are held peacefully in the interest of regional peace.

President of the ECOWAS commission, Ambassador Kadre Desire Ouedraugo, said this when he paid a courtesy visit to the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Maj.Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, in his Abuja office on Wednesday.

The diplomat said ECOWAS, like the rest of the international community, was interested in the peaceful conduct of the elections because of Nigeria’s strategic position in regional and international affairs.

Ouedraugo said, “We have decided to meet all stakeholders in the election to have your views of the electoral process. Peace and stability is essential for development and progress of Nigeria and the entire region. We would count on everyone to make sure that we have peaceful elections.

“As you are aware, the mandate of ECOWAS is to monitor and observe all general elections in our member states and for us elections in Nigeria are special.

“They are of great importance for peace and stability to our region and this is the reason why the chairman of the authority, together with all ECOWAS institutions, is following very closely the electoral process in Nigeria.

“On his behalf and on behalf of my delegation and my behalf we want to thank you and express our gratitude to you on the efforts made to have peaceful elections in Nigeria. We have decided to deploy an observer team of 250 persons to Nigeria and we have decided to deploy a long term observation mission. They were deployed on 20th January in the geopolitical zones of Nigeria.”

He expressed gratitude to the APC flag bearer for conducting himself peacefully like the statesman that he is since the elections were postponed.

Ouedraugo further revealed that former Ghanaian president, Mr. John Kuffour would soon be in the country on a fact-finding mission before the March 28 date.

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