An observer group, Youth Initiative For Advocacy and Growth, Africa (YIAGA) has pledged to promote the integrity of the 2023 General Election, through it’s Parallel Vote Tabulation(PVT).
Executive Director, Yiaga Africa, Samson Itodo, said this at the Yiaga Africa Watching The Vote (WTV)Media Roundtable on the 2023 Presidential Election and Deployment of PVT in Abuja.
Independent Election monitoring promotes greater transparency and improves the performance of the electoral umpire.
The Parallel Voter Tabulation is one of the strategies civil rights groups have adopted in other climes to achieve this.
Parallel Voter Tabulation basically involves the deployment and utilisation of independently accredited observers in random patterns to tabulate Election results across the country as announced at polling units on Election day while comparing same to the official results
On the implementation strategy, Mr Itodo explained that for the presidential election. ”Watching the vote would deploy 3,014 observers stationed in the 774 local government areas and 48 mobile citizen observers to a representative random sample of 1,507 polling units across the states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT)”
Mr Itodo said that the PVT allows YIAGA AFRICA WTV to present an accurate assessment of the election day process, security agents activities, party agents altitude and secrecy of the ballot paper.
“Part of our plan before the election day includes; sensitization of citizens, advocacy visits, capacity building and community Mobilization, Volunteers had already been deployed nationwide to assist in PVC distribution” Itodo added.
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The media has been highly strategic in the electoral process have been asked not to encourage the dissemination of fake news , misinformation and disinformation.
Yiaga’s deployment of 3,836 observers to implement the PVT will go a long way in keeping INEC and other political gladiators on their toes to deliver an enviable 2023 Election that Nigerians can be proud of.
