Did EU Report Say Labour Party Suffered Most Violence In All Nigerian States During Elections? – Fact Emerge

Did EU Report Say Labour Party Suffered Most Violence In All Nigerian States During Elections? – Fact Emerge

“BREAKING: The Labour Party suffered the most Violence and Attacks in Nigerian States during the 2023 Presidential and Governorship election.”

That’s the claim in a post shared on Facebook in Nigeria. It also says of the seven people killed during elections, “six of them were Labour Party members”.

As its evidence, the 10 July 2023 post cites a “European Union EOM” report.

EOM refers to the bloc’s election observation mission.

The claim has been posted on other pages on Facebook including one that belongs to a news website.

The Labour Party has taken to court to challenge the result of the 25 February election. If the claim being made on Facebook is true, this could be used as one of their arguments.

But did the European Union’s election observers make this claim in their report? We checked.

Report: Labour suffered most violence in one state, not all

A copy of the mission’s report is available on the website of the EU’s diplomatic service.

In the report’s section on campaign violence, the mission said it recorded 101 cases, resulting in 74 deaths.

However, it did not mention which political party had suffered the most from these incidents.

The mission highlighted an incident involving the three major political parties – the All Progressives Congress, Peoples Democratic Party and Labour.

The incident, it said, took place in Enugu, a state in south-eastern Nigeria.

“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 [Labour Party] members, including the LP senatorial candidate,” the report read.

Thus, the Labour Party suffered the most violence in an incident that occurred in one senatorial district, not all states.

Credit: Africa Check