United State Institute of Peace (USIP) denies predicting Buhari will win 2019 election

The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) has said it never predicted the outcome of Nigeria’s 2019 general election. It denied ever saying that President Mohammadu will be re-elected  in 2019.

It said that the report which was misinterpreted is a report of a thorough study based on the interviews conducted by the institute across the country with more than 200 Nigerian respondents.

USIP in its statement said, “The institute’s work on elections is confined to helping nations avoid electoral violence.”

It also stated that “it never makes predictions on election outcomes, and has not done such in this case.”

The inaccurate news account is a misinterpretation of USIP’s recent report on the “risks to a peaceful 2019 election in Nigeria.”

The USIP report noted that, in the interviews, “some respondents” discussed their own views of Nigerian public perceptions about an election outcome.

A few of the country’s dailies had reported erroneously earlier this week that the USIP has made a prediction about the possible outcome of Nigeria’s 2019 presidential election.

The news platforms reported that the Institute said that President Muhammadu Buhari may win the 2019 election.

However, USIP strongly holds firm that it is “a strictly nonpartisan institution” and it only focuses on preventing violence during elections.