No fewer than 60 volunteers, two apiece from each of the 21 local government areas in Anambra State have been trained on how to monitor election violence and track campaign finance in the forthcoming 2025 Anambra Governorship Election.
The two-day training which also involved selected journalists from both print and broadcast stations, was organized by the Kimpact Development Initiative (KDI) with support from the UK International Development, and has as theme “Nigeria Election Violence Education and Resolution (NEVER).
The NEVER monitors were adequately educated on how to monitor the entire election cycle starting from the pre-election, election day and post-election period, tracking, documenting, and mitigating security situations, with the aim of achieving peace in the state.
Declaring the event open at Cihcotel Classique Hotel Awka, the Executive Director of Kimpact Development Initiative, Bukola Idowu said event was informed by the lapses identified by this organization during the 2021 Governorship Election, wherein the state had lowest voter turnout for any election in the country because of insecurity.
“We do not want to have that kind of election again because it is a waste of resources. INEC made provision for the over 2.5 million registered voters in the state, and we had less than 300,000 came out. And because the low voters’ turnout was due to insecurity, we strategically brought this initiative to look at how we can mitigate election violence and violence that can happen during the election period in time, because the election is still in November. When the atmosphere is peaceful, people will come out to participate.
“Also, we are carrying the security agencies along, and the data these monitors will be garnering will be sent to them for prompt action,” he said.
Idowu urged the monitors to be factual and not fabricate stories, revealing that the NEVER initiative is scientific and evidence-based and will be reviewed by experts.
The KDI Head, Research and Strategy, Oluwafemi Adebayo, emphasized that the level of the people’s understanding of elections and electoral processes in Nigeria, determines their level of participation in the process
He noted that to improve the people’s appreciation of laws governing the electoral process in Nigeria, the organization had developed a platform, ‘NaijaElections’ to provide reliable information and answers to election questions and Nigeria’s democracy.
Adebayo said, “It was borne out of the need to ensure that young people and electoral stakeholders have a tool from a one-stop platform, that could answer all the electoral questions and history in Nigeria.
“We understand that this is the period of AI, and there is a need for it to be used positively for the process of the election. So, we deployed it to voter education, where it could be used to simplify the bulky documents of the Nigerian Constitution, the Electoral Act, and the electoral guidelines.
“The basic idea is to curb misinformation and disinformation and make sure that people are able to have information in a simplified manner.
“The platform has accessibility features such as text-to-speech and speech-to-text, the light and dark mode, language accessibility, storytelling features, among others.”
On her part, the State Team lead monitor, Ugochi Freeman explained that the engagement of the monitors is targeted at providing a survey on security risk assessment, which the security agencies would be aware of, that may mar the electioneering campaigns and the election proper.
She expressed satisfaction that the training provided each monitor with the right knowledge to know what to look out for when monitoring.
On their part, some of the trained monitors, Nkiru Ezekafor from Aguata LGA and Chinelo Eyisi from Anaocha LGA applauded the training as packed with carefully-packaged modules, which they said have greatly impacted their understanding of the various aspects of election and election monitoring.
They vowed to give their best in the discharge of the task assigned to them, for the good of the state.
