FACT CHECK: Did the EU say Labour Party suffered most attacks in 2023 general elections?

CLAIM: A post on Facebook claims that the Labour Party suffered most attacks related to the 2023 general elections. The claim was attributed to the European Union Election Observation Mission.

VERDICT: Misleading!

FULL TEXT

The claim was made in a post by Igbo Times Magazine on Facebook. The post reads: “EU Election Observation Mission Reports Labour Party suffered the most Violence and Attacks in Nigerian States.

“European Union EOM- Labour Party suffered the most Violence and Attacks in Nigerian States, In seven persons killed, six of them LP members, including the LP senatorial candidate.”

VERIFICATION

Indeed the EU Election Observation Mission in its report on Nigeria’s 2023 general election, released late June asserted that the elections were marred by violence and myriads of other irregularities. However, the report did not specifically state that one party suffered more attacks than the other in any or all states.

In the section of the report on campaign violence, it was stated that violence featured prominently in the campaign period just few days to the presidential election, and it continued into the state-level election

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“In both federal and state-level polls, violent incidents dramatically increased shortly before the election days. During the observation period, the EU EOM recorded 101 cases of campaign related violence resulting in 74 fatalities,” the report read in part.

The part that seems to have been misconstrued in the Facebook post is the part that cited a series of attacks in one day only in Enugu state. It is stated that on February 23, two days to the Presidential and Federal Parliamentary elections, there were a series of attacks in Enugu East; and all three leading political parties – PDP, APC and LP, were victims. However, it notes that the Labour Party suffered the most casualties in the state on the said day. Six of the seven people killed were members of the Labour Party.

“On 23 February, two days before election day, coordinated violent attacks against all three leading parties took place in Enugu-East senatorial district resulting in seven persons killed, six of them LP members, including the LP senatorial candidate. Subsequently, INEC postponed the elections in the district.”

The mission then went on to say that it recorded violent attacks in Imo, Rivers, Enugu, Ebonyi, Kano, Kaduna, Osun and Cross River.

CONCLUSION

The EU EOM did not say that “Labour Party suffered the most Violence and Attacks in Nigerian States,” as claimed in the facebook post. Instead, it cited that six out of the seven people killed in Enugu East, on February 23, were Labour Party members, even though all the three leading parties suffered different coordinated attacks on the same day.

By Olúwatóbi Ọdé̩yínká

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