On August 30, 2022, the Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa facilitated a session tagged 2023 Electioneeering Activities: Asking the Right Questions, Demanding Smart Deliverables at a one-day capacity-building workshop for civil society organizations and media executives organized by the Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership (CACOL) in collaboration with Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC).[spacer height=”25px”]
In his opening remarks, Debo Adeniran, Executive Director, CACOL encouraged participants to prioritize anti-corruption, good governance and accountability issues as agenda-setting for political candidates during the forthcoming 2023 general elections in Nigeria. He noted that the workshop was designed to boost the capacity of the media and civil society organizations to engage Nigeria’s electoral processes in smart, inclusive, and holistic ways that will ultimately bolster support for anti-corruption and social inclusion for critical groups and minority communities.[spacer height=”25px”]
While the workshop theme focused on Election and the Troubled Democracy: The Role of the Media and CSO, discussants at the training session further examined the theme under three main ideas: 2023: Electioneering Activities: Setting the Agenda for Political Actors Through Reportage and Conversation; 2023 Electioneeering Activities: Asking the Right Questions, Demanding Smart Deliverables; Social Inclusion: Sine qua non for peaceful co-existence beyond 2023.[spacer height=”25px”]
According to Wale Adeoye, Executive Director, Journalist for Democratic Rights (JODER) who discussed 2023: Electioneering Activities: Setting the Agenda for Political Actors Through Reportage and Conversation, the media has a traditional role which is to inform, educate, entertain, and in addition, set agenda for local, national and global sustainable goals. Because of the aforementioned responsibilities which are quite critical to the development of the country, media practitioners must strive to ensure that their duties and reportages are guided by objectivity, truth, and transparency.[spacer height=”25px”]
On electioneering activities and asking the right questions to demand smart deliverables, Zikora Ibeh, Policy and Research Lead, CAPPA observed that the forthcoming elections will be a defining moment for Nigeria because success in the elections will not only consolidate the country’s democracy but also elevate her as a shiny example for the West African sub-region which faces the grim reality of a recrudescence of usurpation of power by the military and other anti-democratic forces. In asking the right questions during electoral processes, participants were urged to think of the following questions in order to enhance electoral dialogues, they include: what are the issues? how will the issues be tackled? how development projects will be financed? who will benefit from proposed social infrastructures and policies? what are sustainability plans for projects? how will government’s interventions and policies offer inclusivity for women, youth, and other vulnerable populations of society? [spacer height=”25px”]
Debo Adeniran, Chairman, CACOL facilitated a final discussion tagged social inclusion: sine qua non for peaceful co-existence beyond 2023. During this session, participants were urged to set the agenda for anti-corruption exercises and to promote the inclusion of every layer of society while asking the right questions in the election process.
