Yiaga Africa says it has trained over 62 journalists and civil society organisations (CSOs) on pre-election observation methodology for the Sept. 21 governorship election in Edo.

The media and communication officer, Jennifer Dafwat, disclosed this in an interview with journalists on Wednesday in Benin.

Ms Dafwat said the participants consisted of 19 females and 43 males drawn from media and CSOs in the state.

According to her, “We have representations of about 30 Media Houses and 13 CSOs.

“The programme is tagged: “Yiaga Africa’s Watching the Vote (WTV)-Elections Academy”

” The purpose of the training is for the participants to know the purpose of watching the votes.

“The training will enable the participants to have a deeper understanding of this methodology and pass it down to the citizens

“It is through citizens’ reports that we get pre-election observations, procedures and any other analysis,” she said.

Earlier, Paul James, programme manager, said that the Yiaga team would collate data from 300 polling units from the 4,419 polling units in Edo state.

Mr James said that 25 Yiaga election observers would be deployed across the 18 local governments of the state.

He emphasised the deployment of the use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) and statistics and build citizens’ confidence in the forthcoming poll.

Prof. Nnamdi Aduba, a board member of Yiaga Africa, sued for knowledge sharing and intelligence sharing.

Mr Aduba lamented the convoluted nature of Nigeria politics and avoidable irregularities during polls in Nigeria.

The University of Jos lecturer argued that it was easy to get the buy-in of voters in an election if the electoral process was transparent and credible.

“I am so happy about what I am seeing around; democracy is for everyone. If you empower the natives, you will know that they are not stupid,” he said.

(NAN)