Kogiflame
THE Kogi State Commissioner of Police, Hakeem Yusuf has tasked
Civil Society Organisations have to help deepen voter Education ahead the 2023 general elections so as to enable the electorate participate fully make informed choices in the 2023 general elections.
Kogi State Commissioner For Police who was represented by the Assistant Commissioner of Police operation, Kogi State Command, ASP Anthony Placid, stated this on Tuesday at a one day sensitization workshop organised by Transition Monitoring Group (TMG) in conjuction with Participation Initiative For Behavioural Change For Development for 100 training of Local Governnebt Areas Observers.
He urged Civil Society Organisations to through committees, by organizing workshops, support the electoral commission for a free, fair and credible election.
The ACP called for increased media awareness by Civil Society Organisations to help counter violence, ensure peace and conflict resolution through mediation and dialogue, said CSOs roles in responding to crisis through early warning cannot be overemphasized.
Speaking on the roles of Civil Society in Observing Election, the ACP urged the Civil Society Organisations to ensure a participatory democracy through awareness creation through peace building process, said the Kogi State Police Command has done a threat analysis on perceived areas of violence, assured that the Command is fully ready to ensure a peaceful, credible election.
The ACP urged the Civil Society Organisations to allow for support to the Electoral Commission to take the form of support for the institutional and democratic process, described the 2023 general election as one that requires that all hands must be on deck.
The ACP called for the participation of women and Young people so that they people are allowed to exercise there rights and not to be disenfranchised through sensitization, said the security agencies are committed to ensuring peace, before, during and after the general election.
While pointing out that men of the Police Command will deploy drones in other to capture areas of scene, said welfare of officers has been taken care of, pointing out that the Police in the State have undergone series of training to better prepare its men.
The Civil Society Organisations he added can help reduce conflict and ensure a peaceful election, pointing out that election security revolves around the provision of free fair and credible election before, during and after election which must be the priority of CSOs, urged Observers to be apolitical.
The ACP urged the Civil Society Organisations towards ensuring peace and development through mechanism to monitor the election by developing independent mechanism to monitor biases and violence.
While he urged Civil Society Organisations to ensure that the contribute to the future of credible election monitoring through sub committees that will highlights areas of early warning signs to provide for responds by security agencies.
The ACP said Civil Society Organisations have significant roles to play in peace building by speaking to parties without losing credibility, ensure neutrality and be impartial, called on the CSOs to ensure that people of questionable characters are not presented for election.
The ACP described the CSOs as one of the paramount non State actors in conducting acceptable polls, urged them to promote peace building, but should be safety conscious while monitoring the election.
Mr. Anthony called on the observers to deploy technology, TV Channel to create election awareness, expanding coalition, cooperation, increased effectiveness in monitoring in different geographical location, pointing out that as CSOs monitoring the election, there report should not be to correct INEC during the polls.
He recommended that CSOs should come together to move for laws that would give credibility to election in the country, urged them to make provision for security for protection, work on improving there managerial structure and capacity for better monitoring.
The theme of the Training Workshop titled Supporting Citizens Engagement Towards The 2023 General Election, Training of LGA Observers, was held at the PIBCID Conference Hall, Lokoja, is made possible by Transition Monitoring Group TMG, with funding from USAID and Polladium.
Speaking on the essence of the training, the Acting Executive Director, PIBCID, said the training is to better equip about 100 observers to be deployed by TMG for the 2023 general election in the State.
