Promad Foundation and Advokc have gone into a partnership to collect information from individuals who were unable to vote in Nigeria’s 2023 Presidential and National Assembly elections held in Saturday, February 25.
The two organisations said the election showed the promise of how citizen-driven, participatory, and energetic Nigeria’s democracy could become but the enthusiasm that heralded the process was dampened by “widespread voter suppression, either deliberate or not, experienced across polling units in the country”.
Daisi Omokungbe, executive director, Promad Foundation, and Abiola Durodola, executive director, Advokc Foundation, in a press release they jointly signed on Tuesday, February 28, said reports from election grounds reveal several incidents of intimidation, logistical inefficiencies of INEC, and outright violence .
“We are personally aware of a polling unit with about 750 ready voters, of which only 72 had the chance to vote,” they said.
“The impact of this is dangerous. When citizens lose trust in the process, their motivation to participate as active citizens is eroded, which in turn weakens our democracy.”
Both organisations said having actively advocated for more young people to become more civically active and participate in the democratic process, had collaborated to launch an online database to gain a data-driven perspective on the depth of the impact of this suppression.
“We are deploying an online form using social and traditional media channels to actively gather the data of Nigerians who could not vote because of the inefficiencies of INEC logistics, breakouts of violence, the inability of BVAS to accredit them, or other realities that disenfranchised them.
“We therefore enjoin other Civil Society partners, development organisations, media organisations across the country and the general public to share this form with every individual that could not vote despite coming out to.
“It is important that we acknowledge and applaud the sacrifice of these voters, and even if they cannot be restituted. With their help, all of us can use the findings to work with INEC and other critical stakeholders to ensure that incidences like this become scarcer,” Omokungbe and Durodola said.
They said the form, which opened 28 February, will elapse on 10th March, 2023.
