The United States Institute of Peace has said it never predicted victory for President Muhammadu Buhari in the 2019 general election.
The Institute made the denial in a statement on its website on Tuesday.
The statement was captioned: “Correcting a Media Error: USIP Makes No Prediction on Nigerian Election.”
The institute stressed that the report in Nigeria that its 20-page report on risk to a peaceful election in Nigeria, predicted victory for Buhari was false.
The institute, therefore, stressed that the reports were erroneous, insisting that the Institute was non-partisan.
USIP said its only interest in elections was that of preventing violence, not its outcome.
Recall that report emerged in Nigeria claiming that the U.S. Institute of Peace made a prediction that the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Muhammadu Buhari, will win the 2019 election.
The institute said, “USIP never makes predictions about election outcomes and has not done so in this case. The Institute’s work on elections is confined to helping nations avoid electoral violence.
“The erroneous news accounts misrepresent USIP’s recent 20-page report on the risks to a peaceful 2019 election in Nigeria.
“This study is based on interviews across the country with more than 200 Nigerian respondents—election administrators, political party representatives, security officials, civil society and youth groups, the media, traditional and religious leaders, prominent community figures, business people, academics and others.
“The USIP report noted that, in the interviews, ‘some respondents’ discussed their own views of Nigerian public perceptions about an election outcome.
“A Nigerian news account mis-reported this passage as a USIP prediction of the outcome, and other Nigerian news organizations repeated the error.
“As USIP is a strictly nonpartisan institution, its work on elections focuses entirely on preventing violence. For more information on USIP’s work on peaceful elections and in Nigeria.”
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