European Centre for Electoral Support partners INEC, EMSC on free, fair elections

INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu

The European Centre for Electoral Support (ECES) on Monday said it was partnering with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on delivering free and fair elections in 2019.

Mr Rudolf Elbling, Project Coordinator, ECES, Nigeria said this in his opening remarks at the South-South zonal implementation workshop of the Election Monitoring and Support Centre (EMSC), held in Benin.

Elbling, represented by Mr Wilson Manji, Elections and Communication Officer, ECES, Nigeria also said that ECES had supported the activation of the EMSC dashboard within the framework of the European Union Support to Democratic Governance in Nigeria (EU-SDGN) programme.
He noted that the EMSC seeks to integrate the election project plan (EPP), and the Election Management System (EMS), in order to provide for effective implementation and monitoring of the 2019 elections.

“The EMSC is an effective tool INEC requires to manage field assets, redoubt, constituencies and chains of electoral activities in the organisation of elections within the electoral cycle,’’ Elbling said.

He added that the workshop would provide participants with requisite knowledge, as well as sensitise them on their expected roles before, during and after the elections.

Similarly, Mr Jude Okwuonu, Acting Director, Planning and Monitoring, EMSC, in his key note address, said that the zonal implementers’ workshop was preparatory for the State-level implementers’ workshop.

He said that the State-level workshop would mark the commencement of full scale implementation of the EMSC operations for the 2019 general elections.

Okwuonu said that the workshops were designed to sensitise the participants on their roles in the effective management of the EMSC structure at the State level.

He said the EMSC was the monitoring and evaluation component in the knowledge-driven electoral process framework that measured a number of indicators.

Okwuonu explained such indicators were to assist task owners, task managers and supervisors to monitor and track implantation of the tasks to ensure compliance and election readiness.

Earlier, the Resident Electoral Commissioner for INEC in Edo, Dr Emmanuel Hart, said the workshop was apt as it was necessary to train and retrain major actors in the electoral processes.