Ekiti 2022: CSOs Commit to Mobilise Voters for Increased Participation
- Ahead of the 2022 gubernatorial election in Ekiti state, CSOs have been charged to play a major role in the electoral processes
- CSOs have been urged to champion the course of mobilising electorates to vote as it is their duty to enlighten citizens on the need to vote
- Yiaga Africa, an electoral observation group conducted training for CSOs in Ekiti to give them an inclination on how to go about electoral activities
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Ekiti, Ado - Civil Society Organisations in Ekiti state have made a commitment to mobilise first-time voters to participate in the upcoming governorship elections on Saturday, June 18 in the State.
Legit.ng reports that the commitment was extracted from the representative CSO leaders in the state during the Parallel Vote Tabulation Academy organised by Yiaga Africa in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital on Wednesday, April 27.
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Yiaga Africa’s head of elections, Paul James said that the academy was convened to expose CSOs to Yiaga Africa’s election observation methodology and how the organisation intends to deploy Parallel Vote Tabulation to observe the Ekiti Governorship election.
According to him, the program exposed CSOs to the role of citizens in providing oversight on the electoral process, saying the 30 organisations in attendance are the voice of the people in the state.
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CSOs have a critical role in Ekiti guber poll - Yiaga Africa
James added that the CSOs have a critical role to play when it comes to mobilising prospective voters to go out and get registered, collect their Permanent Voters Card and vote on election day.
He encouraged the CSOs to educate the citizens about the preparatory activities of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and other election stakeholders.
He said:
“For instance, the INEC has introduced 250 new polling units in Ekiti state. We expect the CSOs to identify locations of these new polling units and also help voters to identify the polling units,” he said.
He said CSOs can help the voters to engage better from a more informed perspective not to sit as armchair critics waiting for situations to go bad before spotting the challenges.
He said:
“We want the CSOs to be more proactive than reactive as we still have close to 2 months to the governorship elections. We can use this period to engage both the citizens and other election stakeholders to ensure we have a hitch-free election come June 18, 2023."
Yiaga Africa trains, deploys observers across all LGAs for Ekiti polls
In another development, election observation group, Yiaga Africa yet again has intensified their preparedness to monitor the pre-election, election, and post-election activities at the Ekiti polls.
The groups says it has conducted training for 24 observers to monitor the pre-electoral and electoral proceedings of the gubernatorial election in the state.
Also, it was gathered that all 24 observers will be deployed across the 16 local government areas of the state.
Ekiti CP welcomes Yiaga Africa's collaboration ahead of polls
Meanwhile, the commissioner of police in Ekiti State, CP Tunde Mobayo has said the Nigerian Police Force does not have a choice but to collaborate with Civil Society Organizations like Yiaga Africa.
He said due to the level of work they do on building early warning systems and providing information to prevent escalation of election-related violence, it will be difficult to look away.
He said the nature of work Yiaga Africa does to support electoral stakeholders has made it impossible not to collaborate with the organization especially ahead of the upcoming Governorship election in Ekiti State.
Source: Legit.ng
