Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Yakubu Mahmood, has said that youths have an important role to play in electoral process.
The INEC chairman, who was represented by Dr. Adekunle Ogunmola, National Commissioner and Chairman, Outreach and Partnership Committee, said this in Lagos on Saturday while unveiling youth ambassadors of the commission.
According to Mahmood, the dynamic nature of Nigeria’s electoral landscape presents a compelling reason why the commission must develop methodologies of increasing citizens’ participation in electoral education.
He said the interactive section with youths ambassadors was to leverage on the large followers of celebrities in order to improve young voters awareness and information about the electoral process.
“The commission is also encouraging youths inclusion and non violence participation and that of vote buying. We believe that the ambassadors will use their various creative tools to appeal to voters and inspire them to participate actively.
“The commission conceptualised the idea from entertainment industry, the media and other outstanding youths influencers and commissioned them as voters education youths ambassadors to utilise their platform to disseminate voters education and non violent messages to citizens, especially youths.”
Mahmood added: “In 2014, the commission launched the INEC youths ambassadors programme. But the ambassadors were eventually commissioned during the first national INEC youths summit in January, 2015 which took place in universities across the six geo political zones.
“The commission leverages on the vast network and followership of the ambassadors for public sensitization and promotion of non violence electoral participation among young voters.
“The ambassadors must be neutral and patriotic. Their roles are sharing of information, provision of technical and capacity development.”
Meanwhile, the commission also debunked the claim by some politicians that foreigners from Chad, Sudan, Niger and Mali would be participating in the election.
Festus Okoye, a National Commissioner, who debunked the claim, said it is only two categories of people that would be allowed to vote in 2019.
He said those with permanent voters card and those who are in IDPs “while those who are refugees will not be allowed to vote”.
He said: “Those who have PVCs and those who are in displaced camps across the country will be allowed to vote. Those who are in IDP camps outside their states can only vote during the presidential election, but they cannot vote during governorship and House of Assembly elections.
“Those who are spreading rumours that foreigners will be allowed to vote are telling lies. The Card reader machine we are using now is more sophisticated than that of 2015. We are assuring Nigerians that we are going to conduct a credible election.”
Mr. Domic Grace, representative of the European Centre for Electoral Support, said Nigeria is very important to the Centre.
He said: “European Union sees INEC as a friend. We want all the youths ambassadors to see their posts as a challenge to spur them to do more through their various platforms.
“We want free and fair election in 2019 because if anything happens to Nigeria, it would definitely affect the continent of Africa and the world at large.”
