ELECTION EYEWITNESS MISSION PRESS CONFERENCE.

ELECTION EYEWITNESS MISSION Press Conference.

DEAN Initiative held it’s Election Eyewitness Press conference on 17^th Febuary 2023, among the media crew and organization present were TV stations like AIT, Channels, ARISE tv, Gee Tv and some print media like blueprint media, NANS and FRCN. 

In his press statement the Executive Director DEAN Initiative/Team Lead of the Election Eyewitness mission Project, Mr Semiye Michael made a recap of the INEC Mock Election held in the 36 states including FCT-Abuja on 05/02/2023

In another statement the Election Eyewitness Project Officer Ajayi Theophilus said DEAN Initiative will be conducting the election observation mission to observe the voting process in the 2023 general elections. Through this mission, he said the organization aims to collect reports of incidents and track the entire procedure.

He said the organization has successfully recruited, trained and deployed 774 INEC-accredited observers, one each in every LGA across the 36 states in Nigeria including the FCT. This he said demonstrates the organization’s commitment to improving the quality of good governance through a strengthen electoral process.

He also said that after series of engagements and intense training, the selected field Election Eyewitness observers will observe the entire election procedures from Polling Units down to INEC LG Collation centres, report incidences, result in the collation and transmit the same to the election eyewitness observation situation room for analysis. 

He concluded by saying that the main objective of this mission is to open up a new entry point for young people to effectively participate in the electoral process as a way of rebuilding our national election integrity and inclusive election process. 

On her own part the Program manager ably represented by Miss Olaleru Fisayo mentioned the major key areas of observation that the Election Eyewitness will be focusing on.

• Testing the election time management, which has to do with the time it takes to accredit each voter. 
• Observe the entire BVAS efficiency and performance especially in fingerprint, facial recognition, battery lifespan and in the display of the BVAS reading before the start of accreditation, the general conduct of INEC staff and the security agencies that will be on duty. 
• We will also be observing the possible incidences of vote buying, election violence, underage voting, voters’ confidence in BVAS, and the overall performance of the BVAS. 

The 2023 general election is generally seen to be very crucial to Nigeria’s democracy and the Eyewitness Election observation mission is our contribution to the entire process for a successful and reliable election.