A non-governmental organisation, Yiaga Africa Watch the Vote, on Tuesday, said it would deploy no fewer than 324 observers for the governorship election in Ondo State, scheduled for November 16.
The group said the observers would be deployed in a representative random sample of 300 polling units in every local government area of the state.
The organization’s Election Programme Manager, Mr James Paul, stated this at a stakeholders’ meeting in Akure, the Ondo State capital.
He said, “For the 2024 Ondo State governorship election, #Watching The Vote will deploy observers to a representative random sample of 300 polling units in every local government in Ondo.
“The 300 WTV Polling Unit Observers will be deployed to observe the accreditation, voting and counting processes on election day.
“It will also have 24 mobile (roving) observers present in all the 18 local government areas.
“They will use their mobile phones to send coded text messages of observation reports to Yiaga Africa’s WTV Data Centre in Benin.
“Each observer will receive a structured observation checklist and a critical incident form to ensure uniformity in the observation process.”
Paul added “The WTV observers will report on the opening of polling units, accreditation and voting, counting and the announcement/posting of results.
“The observers will also send in official results as announced by the election officials at polling units to the WTV Data Centre.”
The group also said it would adopt an advanced election-day observation methodology during the forthcoming poll.
It added that a group of citizen observers would also be deployed to randomly sample polling units to collect data on the conduct of elections and official polling unit-level results.
“With the results assembled from the sampled polling units, a citizen observer group can release projected estimates and verify the accuracy of results declared by the election management body.
“Using this methodology, observer reports are sent via SMS to a central database which enables WTV to analyse and share timely findings on the conduct of the election in near real-time,” the group explained.
Stating its operations, Paul stated that Yiaga Africa is a civic non-governmental organisation promoting democracy, governance and development in Africa through advocacy, research and capacity building.
“Our goal is to build democratic societies anchored on the principles of inclusion, justice, transparency and accountability.
“Yiaga Africa operates as a citizens’ movement poised with the onerous mandate of enhancing the quality of democratic governance, public accountability and civic participation,” he explained.
The PUNCH reports that Yiaga Africa monitored the Edo State governorship election held on September 21, 2024.
