Yiaga Africa, a citizen-led movement under the Watching The Vote (WTV) Working Group has disclosed that no fewer than 25 election Observers would be deployed across the 18 Local Government Areas of Edo State by the organization.
Yiaga Africa also revealed that its team would collate data from 300 polling Units from the 4,419 polling Units during the September 21 Edo state election.
Programme Manager of elections Monitoring Group of the organization, Mr Paul James,
disclosed this at a training programme for journalists/ CSOs on Tuesday in Benin City, Edo State where he corrected some misconceptions about the Organization.
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The Watching The Vote (WTV) Working Group programme manager however identified collation of election results by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as the weakest link ahead of the Edo State gubernatorial election.
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 also said that Yiaga Africa has worked with over 40,000 Nigerians over the years in promoting democratic governance in Nigeria.
He harped on the deployment of use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) and statistics, as well as building citizens confidence in the forthcoming poll through the Process Verification Results for Transparency Technology (PRVT).
Safiya Bichi, head of knowledge, Management, Learning Yiaga Africa
in her presentation, took participants through memory lane on 10 indicators of violence during elections.
The factors, she stated, 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 is 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,” she declared.
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.
