Parties, not INEC responsible for voter apathy – GIFAD

Stakeholders’ National Discourse on Nigeria’s Security, Peace and Economic Development have called on political parties to take up their responsibility of creating awareness and building momentum for participation in elections in the country.

The stakeholders said this in a communiqué at the end of the one-day event held in Abuja, noting that rather than blame the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) the recent voter apathy in the country, the political parties should be held responsible.

The stakeholders said political parties have the responsibility of creating awareness and ensuring that the electorate are sufficiently motivated to take interest in and participate in elections, adding that the electoral body is solely responsible for organising the election.

The communiqué signed by the chairman of the Board of Trustees of Global Initiative for African Development, Dr Onwubuja John Abraham Breakforth, the national chairman of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), also said such awareness and sensitisation would help to stall electoral fraud.

Further, it said political parties should work assiduously to create an atmosphere conducive for voter education by focusing on issue based campaigns instead of unnecessary campaign of calumny which it said was the sad experience of the 2019 general elections.

It called on the political parties to cooperate with the INEC on electoral matters saying undue castigation of the electoral umpire poisons the minds of the electorate and create needless aversion for elections.

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