Tag: Yiaga Africa

Executive Director of Yiaga Africa, Samson Itodo, has urged called for an audit of the voter register.

Itodo urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to clean-up the register by removing dead, underage voters from the register. 

He also urged INEC to carry out period validation of the register where voters would validate their credentials.

Itodo said this would reduce the cost spent by INEC in conducting election.

He said this during a roundtable to present a report on voter turnout in Abuja on Thursday. 

The research, sponsored by the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives, highlights the need for improved voter education, better election management, and reforms in the registration process.

Itodo said the country does not need a new voter register but a thorough clean-up of the existing one, which is the largest database of registered voters in Africa.

He suggested a revalidation exercise for voters registered since 2011. 

“If a voter does not show up to revalidate their details, they should be removed from the register,” he said.

Itodo also raised concerns over the cost of elections, explaining that ballot papers are printed based on the total number of registered voters. 

With only 27% turnout in the 2023 elections, he noted that millions of ballot papers went to waste, amounting to billions of naira that could have been invested in healthcare, education, or small businesses.

He further questioned the continued use of Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs), advocating for a system where national identity cards or passports could serve as valid voter identification.

He said: “Many Nigerians were disenfranchised in the last election because INEC did not produce their PVCs. If we already have their details in the voter register, why not allow them to vote with an accepted national identity document?”

Speaking at the presentation in Abuja, Lead researchers, Prof Okechukwu Ibeanu and Dr. Remi Aiyede from the University of Ibadan identified key measures to boost participation. 

These include enhancing voting services, ensuring security, and addressing logistical and psychological barriers that discourage voters.

“Strict and unbiased enforcement of electoral laws—such as penalties for voter intimidation, hate speech, and violence—is crucial to building trust and accountability,” the report noted.

The study emphasised the need for a multi-platform approach to reach diverse audiences.

“Social media can engage younger, urban voters, while radio and television remain vital for older and rural populations. 

“Community outreach, town halls, and grassroots initiatives should target marginalised groups, including women, persons with disabilities, and ethnic minorities, with materials in local languages and accessible formats, they said. 

The report identifies three predominant models of voting behaviour in Nigeria:Self-interest voting, collective well-being voting and candidate/party loyalty voting.

INEC’s Director of Research and Documentation, Ibrahim Sani, acknowledged the challenges in cleaning up Nigeria’s voter register.

 “There is no clear legal provision in Nigeria on how to remove ineligible voters from the register. This creates legal, cultural, and technical obstacles for INEC,” he explained.

A Civil society organisation, Yiaga Africa has called for the strengthening of processes leading to the collation of election results.

The organisation tasked political parties in the country to take responsibility and deploy party agents to polling units during elections to ensure credibility of results.

Executive Director, Yiaga Africa, Samson Itodo gave the charge during the release of the organisation’s preliminary report of the 2024 Ghana general election held on December 7.

It would be recalled that Yiaga Africa deployed a 12-man Election Study and Observation Mission (ESOM) from December 3 to December 10 to understudy the electoral governance architecture, especially in election results management.

Responding to questions on lessons learnt from the elections, Itodo said the deployment of party agents was key to ensuring that no party was shortchanged.

He said: “Our Nigerian parties must come to realise that participating in elections requires a lot of responsibility. You have to deploy party agents; you need eyes in all the polling units because for the parties in Ghana to perform the kind of responsibility they did was contingent on the fact that they had a spread of agents across polling units. They were training people; in fact, one of the parties recruited over 1,500 ad hoc officials, trained them for a period of one year and deployed them for the elections. So elections are a serious business, especially if you want to provide oversight on the election management body.”

Speaking further on lessons learnt from Ghana on how to achieve a credible, transparent and controversy-free election, Itodo said the electoral officers must inspire public trust and confidence.

Read Also: Ondo polls: Why parties should accept INEC’s results, Yiaga Africa

He called on the appointing authorities to uphold the constitution in major appointments like that of the Resident Electoral Officers.

According to him, there are two conditions: they must be individuals that are non-partisan and of unquestionable integrity.

“We have also been advocating that those conditions are not enough; you need competence; you need diversity of skill sets in INEC’s leadership. Also the level of due diligence must be performed when those appointments are made,” Itodo said.

Also speaking, Chairman, Senate Committee on INEC and Electoral Matters, Abiodun Alli, said that for the country to improve in its elections, everyone must trust the system and play by the rules.

Alli, responding on the issue of cross-carriage by politicians, said it was not limited to Nigeria but prevalent because of the lack of identifiable ideology of the political parties and of internal democracy in the parties.

On his part, President, Nigerian Bar Association, Afam Osigwe said the country must strengthen the processes of collation of results during elections.

He said the polling units and collation centres were the weakest links in the electoral processes during the result announcement.

According to him, these are the points results are easily manipulated.

Chair, ESOM delegation to Ghana, Aisha Abdullahi, highlighted some findings that made Ghana experience a success, one of which is transparency and responsiveness in election administration.

Other measures she added include proactive measures such as cleaning the voter register, issuing copies to political parties, and involving party representatives in ballot printing, among others.