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Kerry meets Nigerian presidential candidates ahead of polls

Xinhua, January 26, 2015 Adjust font size:

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday met with two main Nigerian presidential candidates for the February general elections.

During the visit, Kerry held closed-door meetings with incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan, who is also the candidate of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at the Lagos State House and main opposition candidate, General (Retired) Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressive Congress (APC) and his team.

Addressing a news conference in Nigeria's economic hub of Lagos, Kerry said his visit was mainly to advise Nigerian politicians to work toward ensuring a peaceful and violence-free February general elections.

The U.S. government strongly believes in Nigeria having credible, free and fair elections next month, he added, noting that the international community and the U.S. government were keenly interested in the conduct of next month's election.

Kerry said he was impressed with the outcome of his meeting with the two major presidential contenders in the forthcoming elections.

According to him, the U.S. government would not hesitate to deny American visa to any political office seeker involved in political violence in Nigeria.

"We want to say that any Nigerian who promotes any form of violence during the elections remains ineligible for U.S. visa," Kerry said.

The Secretary of State said President Barack Obama specifically sent him to meet with the two candidates with a view to having a violence-free election.

On the security situation in northeast region of Nigeria, Kerry said the U.S strongly condemns these attacks which have escalated in the last few weeks and are gradually spreading to neighboring countries.

He restated his government's commitment to continue to support Nigeria in the fight against Boko Haram sect.

He told reporters that the U.S. will continue to work with the Nigerian military in putting an end to the continuous killings of innocent Nigerians and attack on communities.

Earlier, the U.S. Embassy said in a statement reaching Xinhua that Kerry's visit is to emphasize the importance of ensuring the upcoming elections are peaceful, nonviolent and credible.

The Nigerian electoral commission has fixed Feb. 14 and Feb. 28 for the presidential and federal lawmakers' election, as well as the governorship and state legislators' election respectively. Endi