2019 Nigerian elections: Jega chairs YIAGA Africa’s maiden election dialogue series

As Nigeria prepares for the forthcoming general elections billed for February 2019, immediate past chair of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Professor Attahiru Jega will chair the maiden edition of YIAGA Africa’s WatchingTheVote Election Dialogue Series scheduled for tomorrow in Abuja.

YIAGA’s WatchingTheVote Election Dialogue Series is aimed at providing a platform for key stakeholders in the electoral process to debate on critically-important issues while seeking to provide answers to the question: “Is Nigeria’s Democracy Under Threat?”

The election dialogue series which is a high-level electoral policy dialogue is designed to serve as a platform for key election stakeholders and citizens to engage on pathways for ensuring free, credible and peaceful elections in 2019 and will have as panelists Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, Prof. Okechukwu Ibeanu, Udo Jude Ilo, Idayat Hassan as well as Dan Nwanyanwu.

“As several issues dominating the electoral discourse remain contentious and while each side of the argument will affirm superiority, the important question on how all these impacts on the success and credibility of the 2019 general election is yet to [be] answered,” said a pre-event press statement signed by YIAGA Africa’s Executive Director Samson Itodo.

“While the 2015 general election was largely believed to be free and fair, it was far from perfect with records of poor voter turnout. The 2019 elections presents more intriguing prospects with more citizens getting interested in the election as indicated in the rate of turn-out for the Continuous Voter Registration [CVR] exercise and the whole discourse on having more young people and new alliances contest for the elections,” adds the statement.