FILE- Election posters along a road on the last day of voter
registration exercises in Nigeria's commercial capital, Lagos,
Feb. 5, 2011.
The U.S. Embassy in Nigeria is organizing a series of workshops
to train public affairs officers of the Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC) to be better able to interact with
stakeholders in the run up to next year’s general election,
according to Nick Dazang, the electoral body’s national Deputy
Director for Public Affairs.
Dazang says INEC officers who have participated in the program
are pleased with the intensity and knowledge they acquired
during the training, which he says will improve their education
and sensitization duties with the over 72 million registered
voters in next year’s vote.
“It will be of tremendous benefit to the commission in the sense
that the public affairs officers will be in the position to do their
jobs more confidently and more competently than they used to
do before,” said Dazang.
Dazang says the training will help INEC engage with civil society
organizations, political parties, the media, prospective voters as
well as the entire population about efforts to organize credible
elections.
He says the second part of the training of INEC’s public affairs
officers in the country’s northern region will end on Friday.
Critics say INEC has often failed to organize credible elections by
rigging the vote in favor of some political parties. But Dazang
disagreed, saying the electoral body has been impartial in
administering elections in the country. He added that INEC has
implemented new measures, backed by political parties, to
improve the way the group administers elections.
“Elections generally are a matter of perceptions. The fact that
the EMB [Elections Management Body] has to be seen to be up
and doing and conduct elections that are credible, that are fair
and transparent, Nigerians also need and members of the
international community also need to see these elections truly
transparent,” said Dazang.
“It is the public affairs that can help the EMB to project INEC as
an organization that is determined and irrevocably resolved to
conducting elections that are free and fair,” said Dazang.
Analysts say education campaigns previously conducted by the
electoral commission to sensitize Nigerians ahead of elections
have been inadequate. Dazang said the U.S. Embassy training
will help INEC to better educate Nigerians in the run up to next
year’s elections.
“We expect that Nigerian voters will be better educated and that
our public affairs officers will devise strategies other than the
orthodox once that we used to do to reach out to the millions
of voters that are going to cast their vote,” said Dazang.
“We expect that the public affairs officers will be in a better position
to effectively communicate the commission’s messages, and
our polices to the many stakeholders of INEC.”
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