February 14, 2014

Dear Editor,

I write in regard of a story titled as above on Page 2 of your newspaper edition for today, Friday, February 14, 2014. The report, beginning from the opening paragraph, that representatives of 25 opposition parties walked out on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, is factually false. It also betrays a shocking ignorance of your reporter about elementary statistics of the current state of Nigeria’s political system.

One: there are no ’25 opposition parties’ in Nigeria as of today. All the parties presently existing in the country – ‘opposition’ and ‘non-opposition’ – are 25; and not every one of them was represented at the Osogbo meeting.

Two: the said meeting lasted well beyond 2 p.m. on Thursday, and it was fully attended till the end. Of all the political parties that were in attendance, the representatives of only three made an issue of the incumbent Osun State Resident Electoral Commissioner – to which the INEC Chairman responded that verifiable evidence was needed to substantiate allegations levelled against the REC. In the course of the proceedings, the representatives of ONE party rallied its supporters to leave the meeting auditorium. In fact, representatives of the two other parties that had raised the issue stayed behind with all other participants till the end of the meeting.

Your paper’s reportage of the said meeting, with due respect, betrayed reckless disposition to false sensationalism; which, as many have observed, heats up the polity needlessly and portends grave danger for the Nigerian democracy.

Kindly make amends.