CSOs List Key Issues That Will Determine Polls’ Outcome

Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) Centre for Democracy Development (CDD) and Yiaga Africa have listed some of the key factors that will determine Saturday’s presidential election.

With Nigerians preparing to head to the polls to elect a President and National Assembly members on Saturday, elite think tank, CDD has outlined five key issues, which would determine the voting patterns and the outcome of the election.

This came up at the opening of the CDD Election Analysis Centre (EAC) and pre-election press briefing held at the Transcorp Hilton in Abuja on Thursday.

CDD, which said it is deploying a total of 4,993 trained and accredited observers, data clerks and fact-checkers and social media monitors for both the presidential, legislative and governorship elections, assessed the election as one that will be closely contested with four candidates – Ahmed Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Obi of the Labour Party and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) – likely to have a significant say in the outcome which, at this stage, remains difficult to predict.

Addressing journalists, the chairman, Election Analysis Centre, Professor Adele Jinadu, and the CDD director, Idayat Hassan, said the five issues which could determine the elections are insecurity, fuel and currency crisis, INEC and Security agencies, information disorder and inter and intra-party squabbles.

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To enhance the credibility of the 2023 Nigerian elections, CDD-EAC said the government should ensure INEC and the security agencies – have the necessary resources at their disposal to roll out their comprehensive plans for election day operations that ensure polls take place in a safe, free and fair environment.

“Political parties should ensure that their members and supporters adhere to the conditions laid out in the National Peace Accord through the voting process and after the announcement of results.

“INEC should continue to communicate regularly with Nigerians about the ongoing election process and is as transparent as possible during the collation and announcement of results.

“The Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security must ensure that all security personnel on electoral duty adhere to the agreed code of conduct and rules of engagement.

“Social media companies should support the work of fact-checking organisations by promptly taking down digital content that promotes political disinformation or hate speech that relates to the election.

“Nigerian voters, and citizens in the diaspora, should critically assess information that they receive about the elections before sharing to help prevent the spread of malicious information about the elections,” CDD added.

Also, Yiaga Africa deployed 822 Long Term Observers (LTOs) in all the 774 Local Government Areas (LGA) of Nigeria from November 2022 to February 2023 who monitored political developments and preparations for the general elections, said it is deploying a total of 3,836 observers throughout the country for the presidential election.

“This consists of 3,014 stationary Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT) observers deployed to a random representative statistical sample of 1,507 polling units; 822 roving observers across the 774 LGAs and 36 states; and 8 Working Group members who run real-time election analysis.

“Yiaga Africa will also deploy observers to the LGA and State Results Collation Centres in every state. Our observers will observe the entire election day process from set-up of the polling units through the announcement, posting of the official results and uploading of the polling units to the INEC Result Viewing Portal. The observers will send in periodic reports to the Watching the Vote National Data Centre located in the Transcorp Hilton in Abuja where they will be processed and analysed,” a report release by the Chairman, Yiaga Africa Watching The Vote (WTV) Working Group, Dr Hussaini Abdu and the Executive Director, Yiaga Africa, Samson Itodo, said.