By George Mgbeleke
\nFollowing the commencement of campaign for 2027 general election on wednesaday, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has commenced a two-day strategic communication workshop for Heads of Department, Voter Education and Publicity (VEP), from its state offices across the country, as part of preparations for general Election.<\/p>\n
The workshop, holding in Abuja from August 19 to 20, 2026, is designed to strengthen the capacity of state-level communication officers to engage effectively with voters, tackle misinformation and disinformation, and promote public confidence in the electoral process.<\/p>\n
Declaring the workshop open, National Commissioner and Chairman of INEC\u2019s Information and Voter Education Committee (IVEC), Mohammed Kudu Haruna, said the Commission was contending with several operational challenges, including funding constraints under the envelope budgeting system, a growing electorate and its expanding statutory responsibilities.<\/p>\n
Haruna said the recently suspended Nationwide Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise was expected to result in a voter register of more than 100 million voters, highlighting the scale of the responsibilities confronting the Commission ahead of the 2027 elections.
\nHe said the workshop was organised in response to identified capacity gaps among VEP officers nationwide, expressing confidence that the training would provide participants with practical knowledge and tools to effectively discharge their voter education and public information responsibilities.<\/p>\n
Speaking with journalists on the sidelines of the workshop, Haruna said the training was particularly important as political parties begin their campaigns ahead of the 2027 elections.<\/p>\n
According to him, the training would help VEP officers develop effective communication strategies ahead of the Presidential and National Assembly elections scheduled for January 16, 2027, and the Governorship and State Assembly elections expected to follow three weeks later.<\/p>\n
On voter apathy, Haruna cautioned against placing the responsibility for low turnout entirely on INEC, describing voter participation as a broader democratic challenge.<\/p>\n
He cited the Commission\u2019s recent off-cycle governorship elections, which he said had continued to improve in credibility, noting that observers, civil society organisations and the media had commended the most recent exercises.<\/p>\n
The National Commissioner stressed that although voter education was a statutory responsibility of INEC, political parties also had an important role in mobilising their supporters to participate in elections.<\/p>\n
He further noted that weaknesses in internal party democracy, particularly in candidate selection processes, could contribute to voter disengagement.<\/p>\n
In her welcome remarks, the Director of Voter Education and Publicity Department, Mrs Victoria Eta-Messi, said the workshop was intended to address a longstanding shortage of professional communication training among Heads of Department, VEP.<\/p>\n
Eta-Messi explained that recent redeployments had compounded the challenge, with some officers without formal communication backgrounds now responsible for media relations and public communication in politically sensitive environments.<\/p>\n
She said the training would strengthen participants\u2019 ability to manage misinformation campaigns, coordinate voter education programmes in their states and communicate election-related information and results accurately and confidently.<\/p>\n
The Director reaffirmed the department\u2019s commitment to ensuring that INEC\u2019s communication remained visible, accessible and accountable to citizens and other stakeholders.<\/p>\n
She also commended the resource persons, Prof. Okey Ikechukwu and Mr Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi, describing them as experienced communication professionals engaged to strengthen participants\u2019 capacity as effective voter education practitioners.<\/p>\n
The workshop features five thematic sessions covering strategic voter education as development communication for sustainable citizenship; legal literacy as a strategy for effective voter education; INEC\u2019s internal and external communication policy; understanding and countering deliberate misinformation in the electoral process; and the effective release of official information, including what information should be released, where, when, to whom and how.<\/p>\n
The training brings together Heads of Department, VEP, from INEC state offices nationwide alongside officials of the Commission\u2019s Voter Education and Publicity Department.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By George Mgbeleke Following the commencement of campaign for 2027 general election on wednesaday, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has commenced a two-day strategic communication workshop for Heads of Department, Voter Education and Publicity (VEP), from its state offices across the country, as part of preparations for general Election. The workshop, holding in Abuja […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11882,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16920","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\/16920","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=16920"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16934,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16920\/revisions\/16934"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}