By Muhammad Salim
Ahead of the 2023 general elections in Nigeria, Kano Civil Society Forum (KCSF) in partnership with the Organisation for Community Civic Engagement (OCCEN) have inaugurated election situation room to checkmate electoral malpractices and guarantee free, fair and transparent elections in Kano.
SOLACEBASE reports that the situation room, setup with support from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is targeted to bring on board critical stakeholders and security outfits who will come together to oversee real-time happenings across the state with the aim of addressing the issues as they unfold.
Speaking, at the event on Saturday, the President, KCSF, who is also the convener, Ibrahim Waiya said, “this time around, we are expanding the situation room and more inclusive by bringing other stakeholders on board so as to ensure the election generally becomes a success.”
“Civil society organisations across the 44 local government areas are deployed to be feeding us with information and intelligence and we will be relating that to all relevant authorities and organisations that can be able to tackle that.”
On his part, the Executive Director, OCCEN and Co-convener, Abdulrazaq Alkali expresses optimism that the move will go a long way in bringing under control electoral malpractices bedeviling the system.
“Over the years, the situation room has been tested and it is working in other countries and recently, in Nigeria. We have seen the impact the civil society made in the process and we believe 2023 is also the right time to strengthen the delivery of the process.”
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“What it is set to achieve is to make sure that the electoral process is transparent and we are providing real time information to stakeholders and to citizens on happenings on election day especially on the presidential and national assembly.”
“We are going to operate a situation room that will bring the security, INEC representative, DSS, among others to sit down together with the members of Civil Society who will bring expertise in terms of technological and analytical skills so that we can look at what is going on.”
Dignitaries present at the inauguration who also drum support for the realization of the system were representatives of the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC, the Police, Inter Party Advisory Council (IPAC) and the Department of Security Service (DSS).
Others are the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corp (NSCDC), the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).
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