Election: CSO deploys 2,000 observers, opens Situation Room

Forum 1 year ago

Election: CSO deploys 2,000 observers, opens Situation Room

Barely 24 hours to Nigeria’s 2023 presidential election, a civil society organisation, Centre for Transparency Advocacy, has announced the deployment of 2,000 observers across the country to support other field observers it had earlier assigned to monitor the Saturday February 25 presidential and National Assembly elections.

The CTA disclosed this at the official opening of its Situation Room, on Friday in Abuja,

Making the announcement, the Executive Director of CTA, Faith Nwadishi, stated that the organisation in preparing for the election, conducted stakeholders’ meetings across the six geopolitical zones, held several press conferences on different issues as they arose, observed the mock accreditation across the states, trained observers, and sensitisation of the PWDs in the FCT, for a successful conduct of the elections.

Nwadishi said, “The CTA is deploying a total of 2,000 observers across Nigeria. To support our field observers, CTA has set up its Situation Room to follow up with field reports from observers to generally establish common trends towards gauging the level of compliance with minimum international standards for credible elections.

Recall the process of the 2023 general election by the Independent National Electoral Commission, began officially on 22nd February 2022 with the publication of Notice of Elections and a 14 point election timetable which includes the following; party primaries, submission of list of candidates, campaigns and voting, which will see the emergence of a new president for Nigeria.

The CTA director further remarked that “There are 93,469,008 registered voters across 8,809 registration wards and 176,846 polling units across 774 Local Government Areas. A total of 15,331 contestants including 18 presidential candidates are vying for various positions.

The group noted that the 2023 general election is a defining moment for Nigeria and the INEC given the relative state of insecurity across the country, the spate of attacks on INEC facilities in some parts of the country as well as the general state of insecurity in some other parts which remains a major challenge to the conduct of the elections.

It noted that “Several innovations have been introduced into the 2023 general elections. These include the deployment of the Bi-modal Voters Accreditation System, the electronic transmission of election results from the polling units direct to INEC’s portal and INEC Result Viewing portal among others.

While commending INEC’s performance so far, the group enjoined the electoral umpire not to rest on their oars until a free, fair and credible election is delivered to the Nigerian people.

The CSO called on the security agencies who have been deployed in election duties “to conduct themselves with utmost neutrality and professionalism

“We call on political parties and their agents to conduct themselves in accordance with the election guidelines and the rules of engagement at polling units and collation centres. All forms of malpractices including vote buying and selling should be avoided.

The group also urged the electorates to remain vigilant, law abiding and peaceful in all their conduct before, during and after election.