The Economic Community of West African States, (ECOWAS) says it is deploying one hundred and sixty-three Observers for the ECOWAS Election Observation Mission to the Gubernatorial and State House of Assembly Elections in Nigeria, held Saturday, March 18, 2023.
The Commission says the deployment is in line with the ECOWAS Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance of 2001.
It is with the invitation of the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC), to the President of the ECOWAS Commission.
The Observers will be drawn from Community Institutions,
Ministries of Foreign Affairs and electoral experts from West African Civil Society Organisations.
It will also include a thirteen-member core team of electoral experts that have been in the country since the presidential elections.
The upcoming deployment follows the holding of the 25 February Presidential and National Assembly elections, to which ECOWAS deployed 250 observers across the six geopolitical zones of the country.
The 163-member ECOWAS, EOM Team, will be deployed from 15 to 21 March 2023, to eighteen states, identified based on technical assessment and analysis of trends and hotspots, to monitor the Governorship and State Assembly Elections, physically and remotely.
The states include:
South-West: Lagos, Ogun, Oyo;
South-South: Rivers, Edo, Delta;
South-East: Enugu, Ebonyi, Imo;
North-Central: Nasarawa, Plateau, Benue;
North-West: Kano, Kaduna, Sokoto;
North-East: Borno, Adamawa and Taraba.
(Editor: Ifeanyi Mark)
