The Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) has tasked organisations and communities with the need to collectively engage in voter education in order to totally eliminate electoral infractions in the 2023 election.
This call was made at a public engagement on the 2023 electioneering process, which was held on Thursday, at the BNI Youths Centre, the University of Ibadan, by the ‘Cure My Nation’ initiative and Alliance on Surviving COVID-19 And Beyond (ASCAB), Oyo State.
Speaking at the event, the head, Voter education and publicity Department in INEC Oyo State, Mrs Rosemary Alaba-Adeniyi said: “eliminating electoral infractions through voter education requires the collective and supportive efforts of all, including your organisation that works in the community.”
While speaking on the introduction of technological innovations by the commission to increase transparency in the 2023 election, she said that the Electoral Act 2022 has “many progressive provisions that have provided legal backing to the innovation.”
Prof Toye Olorode, who delivered the keynote address placed emphasis on the need for Nigerians to be interested in what they want to vote for as organisations, and not as individuals.
He said, “People are more powerful if they’re in an organisation or a group. People in a community will have a common course with which they want to deal with a kind of political party or candidate. If you are a teacher, you will have some ideas of the problem that the education system has. So it’s easier and more comprehensive to deal with political parties or candidates as an organisation that has a common interest.”
In his address, a human rights lawyer and labour activist, Comrade Femi Aborisade called on INEC to deregister political parties that have manifestos that are not in conformity with Chapter 2: Section 224 of the Nigerian constitution.
He emphasised the importance of the constitution as it provides that basic needs should be made available to every citizen by the government in power.
“We call on INEC to deregister, APC and PDP because they do not have a manifesto that is in conformity with chapter two of the Constitution because section 224 of the Constitution provides that political parties registered by INEC must have a manifesto in conformity with chapter two of the Constitution and INEC has failed in its constitutional duty to deregister APC and PDP because INEC is just a tool in the hands of the ruling class,” he said.
The Oyo State Director of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), Mr K.F. Odedokun, who was represented by the head of Human Resources, Pastor Posi Adepoju, said the utility of the Freedom of Information Act signed by former President Goodluck Jonathan is not limited to journalists and media practitioners but also to every member of the public.
The convener of the initiative, Comrade Moshood Adewale, however, counselled Nigerians on the need to be conscious of their rights as citizens who should be able to engage political representatives at all levels of every community development.
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