The Justice, Development and Peace Commission (JDPC) has tasked media practitioners to step up voter education campaigns ahead of the 2023 elections.

JDPC placed the demands as part of the resolutions reached at a media roundtable it organised on Wednesday in Ibadan.

“Media should communicate the urgency of PVCs collection as a strong determinant of the outcome of elections,” the gathering advised. “They should set an agenda for the 2023 election.”

The meeting said that the media should let the electorate know that the voting process, judging from the just concluded governorship election in Osun, had become more friendly.

It also tasked the media to step up their games by becoming more recognised as essential workers.

Worried over the large numbers of uncollected Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) in various states, the meeting urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to make its collection less cumbersome for prospective voters.

It agreed that INEC should embark on aggressive sensitisation of the stakeholders, especially the media, on the use of the new technological process, Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS).

Jide Bamgbose, JDPC Head, Democracy and Governance, said that a critical appraisal of two successive governorship elections in Oyo State showed a disturbing trend, as voter turnout in the two elections was abysmally poor, when compared with the total number of registered voters.

“This, coupled with the higher number of invalid votes during polls, calls to question the legitimacy of whosoever emerges victorious, because the figure, when compared to the numbers of registered voters, is significantly low,” Mr Bamgbose said. 

(NAN)