By George Mgbeleke <\/p>\n
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared its readiness to collaborate with National Orientation Agency (NOA) to tackle Voter Aparty,vote buying and fake News in the conduct of 2027 general elections.
\nNational Chairman ,Independent National Electoral Commission,Prof Joash Amupitan dropped this hint on Wednesday at the Commission\u2019s Headquarters when the Director General, National Orientation Agency,Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu paid him a courtesy visit. <\/p>\n
Prof Joash who recalled with sadness the Commission\u2019s experience during the off-cycle governorship elections in Anambra, Ekiti States and council elections in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) said voter aparty and Fake News have constituted the biggest challenges faced by INEC.<\/p>\n
“Our partnership with you on voter education is not a secondary option; it is an absolute necessity.
\nWe must be honest with ourselves. We are battling a silent, dangerous enemy in our electoral ecosystem: voter apathy and deep-seated cynicism. <\/p>\n
“We see it in the off-cycle polls where turnout does not match the energy of our national conversations. We also see a sophisticated, orchestrated wave of fake news and disinformation designed to make the ordinary Nigerian believe their vote will not count. <\/p>\n
“Together, INEC and the NOA must rewrite this narrative. We need to co-create a decentralized, grassroots voter education campaign that goes beyond simply telling people when to vote. We need to teach them why their vote matters and how our new legal and technological safeguards protect their choices.”<\/p>\n
Continuing he said, ” We must look the rural farmer, the marketplace woman, and the disillusioned urban youth in the eye and explain to them, in the language they understand, that because of the current technological infrastructure, the era of snatching ballot boxes or rewriting results manually is gone.<\/p>\n
“We do not have to look far to see the practical validation of these upgrades. The recent February 21 Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Area Council elections and the June 20 off-cycle Governorship election in Ekiti State served as critical, real-world stress tests for our machinery. In both outings, our operational achievements were undeniable: we recorded over 90 percent early opening of polling units, impressive biometric authentication via the BVAS, and exceptionally swift, transparent result uploads to the IReV portal. Administratively and technologically, the template is working.<\/p>\n
“Yet, these very same elections brought a sobering discovery to the fore\u2014one that underscores why your visit today is so timely. Despite our operational precision, both the FCT and Ekiti polls revealed a persistent, deeply concerning undercurrent of voter apathy, alongside widespread confusion among urban newcomers regarding local polling unit splits and registration transfers.<\/p>\n
“This is a clear indicator that while our technology is moving forward, civic familiarity with the evolving system is lagging. It is a loud diagnostic signal that far more needs to be done in the area of intensive, deep-rooted voter education, and it proves that we cannot afford to wait until the eve of the 2027 polls to start talking to our people.”<\/p>\n
He further added,”As we look toward the 2027 timelines \u2014with our Presidential election firmly set for January 16 and Governorship polls for February 6\u2014 we must begin the heavy lifting right now. This is the moment to institutionalize our collaboration. I want to see a strong working relationship between INEC\u2019s Voter Education department and the NOA\u2019s communication teams.<\/p>\n
” Let us build joint campaigns against the toxic menace of vote-buying and misinformation, which threaten to contaminate our democracy. Let us work together with your field officers with the accurate technical knowledge of INEC\u2019s operations so they can act as trusted ambassadors of truth in their respective communities.”<\/p>\n
Earlier, NOA DG,Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu had pledged his Agency’s preparedness to collaborate with INEC on voter apathy, vote buying and fake News by carrying out massive and effective voter education on the electorate in all the 36 states of the Federation FCT and the grassroots given th
\nthe spread of NOA’s offices in every state and local government areas of the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By George Mgbeleke The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared its readiness to collaborate with National Orientation Agency (NOA) to tackle Voter Aparty,vote buying and fake News in the conduct of 2027 general elections. National Chairman ,Independent National Electoral Commission,Prof Joash Amupitan dropped this hint on Wednesday at the Commission\u2019s Headquarters when the Director […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15152,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15151"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15153,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15151\/revisions\/15153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}