Edo Guber: Yiaga Africa identifies weakest link in elections
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Edo Guber: Yiaga Africa identifies weakest link in elections
By Adesuwa Louisa
A citizen-led movement under the Watching The Vote (WTV) Working Group better known as Yiaga Africa has identified collation of election results by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as the weakest link ahead of Edo State gubernatorial election billed for September 21.
Mr Paul James, Programme Manager of elections Monitoring Group disclosed this at a training programme for journalists/ CSOs on Tuesday in Benin City, Edo State where he corrected some misconceptions about the Organization.
According to him, “In Nigeria, one of the weakest links in election is collation. That is why results from polling units are the purest.”
Mr James stated that Yiaga Africa has worked with over 40,000 Nigerians over the years in promoting democratic governance in Nigeria.
The Programme Manager, Yiaga Africa also stated that Yiaga team would collate data from 300 polling Units feom the 4,419 polling Units in Edo State.
He further revealed that 25 Yiaga election Observers would be deployed across the 18 Local Government Areas of the State.
He harped on the deployment of use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) and statistics, as well as build citizens confidence in the forthcoming poll through the Process Verification Results for Transparency Technology (PRVT).
In her presentation, Safiya Bichi, head of knowledge, Management, Learning Yiaga Africa took participants through memory lane on 10 indicators of violence during elections.
She stated that the factors include communal clashes, destruction of campaign posters by political thugs and other issues of concern.
The resource person of the Non-Governmental Organization said it’s committed to credible election, noting that they have “projected that there is likelihood of low turn out of voters.
“The election is going to be competitive because there are other factors within the contest that will likely affect the outcome of the election,” according to her.
A Board member of Yiaga Africa, Prof. Nnamdi Aduba, who sued for knowledge sharing and intelligence sharing, lamented the convoluted nature of Nigeria politics and avoidable irregularities during polls in Nigeria.
The University of Jos lecturer argued that it is easy to get the buy-in of voters in an election if the electoral process is transparent and credible.
He said, “I am so happy about what I am seeing around; democracy is for everyone. If you empower the natives, you will know that they are not stupid,” Prof. Aduba said.
The Edo State chairman, Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Comrade Festus Alenkhe, commended Yiaga Africa and urged media practitioners to remain apolitical and prioritize safety over personal gains, ahead of the forthcoming poll.
Earlier, the President, Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations (CONGOS), Comrade Bartholomew Okudo, expressed optimism that the training would help INEC achieve set objectives.
