We have no preferred candidate, party in 2023 elections – US Consular General
By Ibiyemi Mathew and Adenike Agunsoye
The United States Consular General, Claire Pierangelo has stated that the United States of America is not backings any politician and political party in the Nigerian 2023 General elections.
He said this while delivering his address t U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit’s panel discussion on the theme “Emerging Voices in Governance and Creative Industry” held in Lagos, Nigeria
The Consular General stated that the US is only interested in ensuring people have a chance to vote, the elections are free, fair, credible and conducted peacefully in 2023.
Speaking at the event, the Senior Radio Host at Nigeria Info 99.3 FM Sandra Ezekwesili stated that Nigeria has a lot to learn from the United States model of democracy.
Sandra was amongst the journalists sponsored by the Consular from Nigeria to observe the US midterm election in November this year.
She said “Americans democracy is really important for the rest of the world. And so when America is having her elections, everybody is paying attention, because you realize if they get it, right, perhaps we can get it right”.
“We had a chance to speak with NGOs who are doing a lot of work to protect the vote, watch the vote, get the voters out to vote. Most of the groups we spoke with were talking about voter intimidation which was quite surprising to me”.
“They were talking to us about people who were trying to suppress people who are trying to ensure that people could not come out to vote but the groups did the hard work to make sure that those people who want to intimidate voters, who want to steal the votes are unable to do it, you know, and that’s something that we lack here in Nigeria”. She narrated.
Sandra encouraged Nigerians not to look away and assume that it’s not their business.
“In Nigeria, you have a lot more people who are willing to look away, but in America everybody took it personal.” She said.
Addressing youth participation in the overall electoral process in the United States, Sandra said that she loved that today’s generation of young people have seen the mess that the older generation have made and they are doing their best to fix it all over the world.
She outlined that in Nigeria today, young people are showing us every day in this election, that they’re serious about 2023.
“Young people are the reason that there is a credible third force movement in the country and also, young people also made up a huge percentage of the people who are registered to get their voters cards for the elections in 2023. ”
“Young people have actually moved beyond we want to make this happen and they are now making it happen and so in 2023, and we’re going to have all of them come out and vote, maybe not. We will have a sizable number of young people voting in this next general election than in previous elections” she added.
