Electoral Violence: It’s Not Our Role To Sanction Political Stakeholders — EU

The European Union has said that imposing sanctions on political stakeholders over electoral violence reported in some parts of Nigeria ahead of the 2027 general elections is not its responsibility.

The EU Ambassador to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Gautier Mignot, stated this while speaking on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief on Thursday.

“I was listening to that, and I was thinking: what kind of conception of Nigerian sovereignty is that if you expect from an international partner to sanction, give punishments, give good marks, bad marks to your political and institutional stakeholders? This is not our role,” said Mignot.

“Our role is to support the process, support the stakeholders, empower them, and this is what we are doing. This event where we spoke about political violence was organised by the National Human Rights Commission yesterday in Abuja with EU support, precisely to give a platform where these issues can be showcased and discussed, and with recommendations that were issued by the participants.”

“We are here to support Nigerian stakeholders, not to take their place or tell them what to do.”

EU Ambassador to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Gautier Mignot, clarifies the bloc’s role ahead of the 2027 general election on #CTVMorningBrief. https://t.co/d8rKNO7Arp

— Channels Television (@channelstv) November 12, 2026

He said the EU is empowering civil society to deploy 5,500 observers during the elections.

“A couple of weeks ago, we had an event with INEC, with civil society on a simulation of incidents of misinformation, especially through artificial intelligence, to see how stakeholders will react.

“So we are here to support the Nigerian stakeholders, not to take their place or to tell them what to do. This is our role as international partners, as we see it,” he added.

He explained that expecting sanctions like the ones placed on Russia for its war in Ukraine would be “too high expectations or wrong expectations”.

“Why are we sanctioning Russia? Why are we not sanctioning this or that individual in this or that state because he or she made an inflammatory speech?

“I mean, clearly you can see it’s not the same scale. It’s not in one case; it’s just internal to Nigeria. In other cases, it’s an attack against another country and against Europe itself,” he said.

“This is the kind of cases where we use sanctions, not to sanction individuals in almost 200 countries of the world wherever someone is misbehaving, according to democratic standards. We can’t do that. This is not our role.

“So I think that this has to be understood because sometimes I think there are too high expectations or wrong expectations towards the EU and other partners,” the ambassador added. “Our role is to support the process, is to also give advice, give recommendations.”