As the 2023 general elections draws nearer, West Africa Democracy Solidarity Netwrok (WADEMOS), a non-partisan independent civil society has called for peaceful coexistence among politicians across the country.
The coordinator of WADEMOS, Mr Kop’ep Dabugat, who noted this in Abuja on Wednesday, said the call was necessary in order to guard against electoral violence, adding that politicians should also ensure that they give their supporters the right education.
He said the coming election is a very unique election in West Africa, given the number of voters’ turnout, which is even more than the population of several countries.
According to him, the implication is that, once anything goes wrong in Nigeria, it affects the whole West Africa.
Dabugat said that WADEMOS was meeting with major stakeholders in the electoral process to push for the conduct of free fair and credible elections in Nigeria.
Also, the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development, Mr Kojo Asante, said the security situation in Nigeria has necessited that citizens needed to be involved to tackle it and not to be left to security agencies alone.
Asante said that any attempt to leave security to the security agencies would not resolve the matters that Nigerians were dealing with.
According to him, there are areas that of course the army and the police will secure because it is a territorial issue, but issues like political violence and conflict, the people have roles to play to curb it.
Also, the Regional Coordinator ,National Elections Watch ,Sierra Leon, Ms Bernadette French explained that WADEMOS was established in response to signs of democratic backsliding and a reversion to autocracy in Western Africa.
French said WADEMOS is a network consisting of 30 CSOs located in 15 countries and the objective of WADEMOS is to promote democracy, good governance and inclusive development.
She further said the objective of the network is to also build solidarity , mobilise and facilitate collective action among African diverse pro-democracy civil society, organisation and other civic actors.
This ,she said was to produce and disseminate data and analysis to support evidence within pro democracy advocacy and activismin the region.
