17th October 2017
Preparations for the Anambra state governorship election scheduled for 18th November continued today in Awka, the state capital, with the commencement of a five-day capacity develop workshop, designed to sharpen the skill sets of Electoral and Assistant Electoral Officers.
Organized by the Electoral Institute (TEI) in collaboration with the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), the training was divided into two streams with the first class comprising 21 Electoral Officers and 21 Assistant Electoral Officers (Operations). The second class consists of 21 Assistant Electoral Officers (Administration) and 21 Assistant Electoral Officers (Cluster). This category of participants is made up of the local government training officers who are to cascade the training at the local government area (LGA) level.
The overall objective of the class is that, at the end of the training, Electoral Officers should be able to effectively manage and supervise trainings for poll workers on polling and counting procedures.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for Anambra State, Dr Nkwachukwu Orji declared the training open and urged the participants to remain focused on the envisaged goals.
Acting Director General of TEI, Dr Sa’ad Umar reminded the participants that the task of ensuring a transparent, credible, free and fair election is a responsibility the Electoral Officers share, urging them to give the training the attention it deserves.
His words: “I am glad to say that our collective commitment to improve upon the electoral processes has been yielding positive results as illustrated by the outcome of the series of elections that the Commission has conducted. The elections in Edo and Ondo States were adjudged to be a great improvement on the 2015 general elections, principally arising from the use of cascaded electoral training that was employed at these elections, in terms of the professional conduct of the Commission’s personnel on election duty.”
Mr. Seray Jay, who represented IFES’ Country Director, described the INEC, IFES partnership as one “that works.” He charged the participants to apply themselves to the benefits of the training and ensure the delivery of a good governorship election in Anambra state.