Ahead of the Federal Capital Territory Area Council elections, the FCT Resident Electoral Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Alhaji Yahaya Bello has reiterated the commitment of INEC to partner with Yiaga Africa and other credible Civil Society Organisations to ensure improvement in the electoral process. The REC said this on Tuesday when he received the elections team of Yiaga Africa on an advocacy visit in preparation for the council polls scheduled to hold on February 12th 2022.
Alhaji Bello in commending Yiaga Africa for their effort in observation of the Continuous Voters Registration and its recommendations to improve the process said, “during the CVR, Yiaga Africa were the first e to deploy observers who consistently observe the process. We are going to continue partnering and engaging with you and we cherish whatever contributions you are going to make to ensure the election is a success”.
He added that feedback from election observation from organisations like Yiaga Africa will be very important in improving the electoral process. He then urged Yiaga Africa to also concentrate on ensuring that women participate in the political process.
The Yiaga Africa delegation was led by the Head of Knowledge Management, Safiya Bichi who said that the visit is aimed at exploring areas of collaboration to improve citizens’ participation for the February 12th FCT Area Council elections. She added that the visit is part of Yiaga Africa #WatchingTheVote advocacy to critical stakeholders to promote peaceful and credible FCT Area Council elections with improved citizens participation in the process.
Also speaking during the meeting, the head of Yiaga Africa’s Elections team, Paul James said the organization will be employing the election-circle approach in its observation of the FCT election to observe what happens before, during and after the elections.
“For Yiaga Africa, every election is important. For the FCT Election, Yiaga Africa has started observing the pre-election environment. This includes providing a platform for young candidates running for the elections to share their plans and challenges ahead of the elections,” he added.
According to him, pre-election observation enables Yiaga Africa to provide information on what is happening and recommendations on anything that is going wrong.
Yiaga Africa will deploy observers across all the Area Councils in FCT to observe the election process from the beginning till the end including the collation of election results.
The visit to the FCT Resident Electoral Commissioner is part of Yiaga Africa #WatchingTheVote advocacy to critical stakeholders to promote peaceful and credible FCT Area Council elections with improved citizens participation in the process.
