INEC CHAIRMAN REITERATES NEED FOR INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE SHARING AND CAPACITY BUILDING

Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu, has reiterated the need for international experience sharing and capacity building for electoral officials in Africa. He said such efforts will improve the integrity of elections in the continent.

The INEC Chairman expressed delight that the team from University of South Africa (UNISA), were around to interact with, and get relevant feedback from the programme’s Alumni (INEC staff) who had previously participated in the MDEA programme in order to recalibrate, to redesign and enhance their curriculum to meet present realities and challenges on election delivery. Said he: “The feedback from the alumni would assist the organizers to tailor their programme to the realities and challenges so that we can move the integrity of elections in our continent further”.
Professor Yakubu was represented by his Chief Technical Adviser, Professor Bolade Enyila, at the Evaluation, Monitoring and Mentorship visit by the Head of The Institute of African Renaissance of the University of South Africa (UNISA), Professor Vuyusile Msila, for the Programme on Management of Democratic Elections in Africa (MDEA), at the Commission’s headquarters, Abuja.

Professor Yakubu stressed that: “the onduct of Elections is quite critical, and this exercise is an opportunity to learn, unlearn and to relearn new things so that we are not complacent in our ways of doing things”.

In his remarks, Professor Vuyusile, explained that the programme had been on since 2010 with support from USAID. He expressed joy that the visit would provide the opportunity to share experiences with MDEA alumni and also learn from them challenges and the problems within the programme.

He further explained that the programme which is presently ran by 27 African countries and counting, is “focused on solving African problems, trying to spread the gospel and getting Africans discussing as to how to minimize the problems that come with elections and voting throughout”.

Professor Vuyusile said the positive feedback from the governments of the different participating countries had shown that the programme was very necessary and it needed to be done as much as possible so as to promote the much sought after peace in Africa.

He disclosed that the feedback from the different countries would help improve the programme’s newly introduced modules on youths and elections, gender, election ethics as well as the charter of elections.