Do Take Action Project Lead
CENTURY FAVOUR
Entrepreneur
Project Status
Completed
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THE NEED
For every time, the election season draws to a close in the country, the dance between political parties, candidate choice and propaganda is to be expected. Public opinion debate also escalates on the stages of social and traditional media. However, there is an unhealthy pattern surrounding the Nigerian election behaviour that calls for immediate redress.
In the months leading up to the 2019 elections, conversations volley from one inconsequential topic to another. Where our focus should be on the salient issues of governance, we are more concerned with the sensational, showing a clear lack of priorities. Other than highlighting the issues that affect us as tools to criticize opposing sides, we are not really engaging these issues to explore solutions or engaging the political candidates on their agenda as regarding these issues. We also don’t have a comprehensive, relatable database or information portal that Nigerians can engage on the state of affairs regarding power, the economy, the health sector etc. as it affects you.
In one vein, a notable percentage of Nigerians, are not even interested in voting or supporting a party because they feel their interest or support will not produce any results that translate to change in their immediate reality or the plights they are suffering. As far as they are concerned, all governments or regimes or election cycles are the same, it’s only in the interest of the power brokers and not the grassroots.
In line with this, civil societies focus on advocating for voting and driving people to the polls. But when the purpose of a thing is not known, it will show in the results. There is a need to examine the underlying reasons for misplaced voter enthusiasm and voter apathy and we can only achieve this by having a clear understanding of the issues.
An uninformed society where citizens are not empowered to hold leaders accountable for the power entrusted to them is a recipe for disaster, If we don’t know what is wrong, we won’t know what to demand and will end up grasping at straws. However, when the Nigerian citizen understands the prevalent issues and has a clear grasp of the contributory factors especially with regards to how it affects him/her, they will understand the value of their vote and have a clear idea of what to engage political candidates on.
DO TAKE ACTION CITIZENS AND GOVERNANCE PROJECT INCREASES VOTER AWARENESS THROUGH #EARNOURVOTES ONLINE DATA SURVEY & CIVIC ENGAGEMENT ADVOCACY CAMPAIGN
Century Favour, a strategist who is passionate about creating and influencing for social change sought to change this narrative by designing the #AsWeDeyVote virtual campaign in conjunction with the DO-Take Action team.
He launched his campaign under the Citizens and Governance program. Evolving from the launch of the #VotersSpeak project and the gaps observed from the implementation process as well as the outcome of the 2019 elections, the Citizens and Governance project came to bear as the solution to bridge the disconnect between the government and the governed as well as encourage voter education or inspiration, using the three cardinal approaches of; Train, Empower and Engage.
In keeping with the inclusive governance objectives of the former #VotersSpeak campaign, the #AsWeDeyVote campaign is a mini-campaign designed to engage political office aspirants against the 2019 general elections in Nigeria by providing them with a glimpse of 25 key issues that voters care about.
An additional goal of the campaign was to engage and promote good governance by equipping the Nigerian citizen with accurate information to rightly demand accountability as well as question the government’s decision-making process and agenda
Here’s how he launched the campaign;
- His first plan of action was to outline the prevalent issues he wanted to engage and direct governance focus on.
- Next, he developed a resource toolkit that provided clarity on the issues for anyone to engage. This toolkit included infographics, concise content, images etc. that was backed by in-depth research.
- Lastly, he mobilized a pod (community) of individuals/organizations within his circle of influence to join in on this campaign.
A group of seven foremost presidential aspirants were selected and these 25 key challenges, questions and expected commitments that were collated from our interactions with voters were posed to them.
The second stage of the campaign sought to engage the manifesto/policy plans that these presidential candidates across 7 political parties had shared to tackle these challenges and secure answers and necessary commitments from them on these issues.
The last phase was to codify the commitments and answers gotten in order to;
- Provide voters with a strong understanding of the issues and the agenda of these aspirants in tackling these challenges. This will help voters be informed about who should #EarnOurVote.
- Engage these presidential aspirants on the commitments they’ve made and ensure accountability.
To get the ball rolling, the first task in the first week of implementation, was to highlight 25 topical issues for engagement. The issues for engagement cut across various sectors of the nation- the burden of employment, food security, education, poverty, health infrastructure and medical tourism, security, corruption, power generation and distribution, disunity, restructuring, inequality etc.
Next, he put together a detailed, statistics-backed background report of each outlined issue since independence and the current state of affairs. For example, what has been invested so far in power and the number of plants in Nigeria. Each topical issue comprised the following;
- The facts (where we are now)
- The Backstory & the Arguments (what politicians are saying, what the ordinary citizens are saying) supported with references.
- Where we should be.
- How it affects the average citizen
- Questions about their agenda/policy plans and expected commitments.
The reports were then converted to personalized infographics for each of the selected presidential aspirants.
On the 20th of November, 2018, the next segment of the project was launched via his Twitter handle. The infographics were tweeted at the candidates and individuals and organisations within his circle were mobilized to join in on the campaign by retweeting, sharing and liking. This also served to lend strength and increase the reach of the campaign.
IMPACT
In under 24 hours of launching the campaign on Twitter, it had garnered over 20,000 impressions, a remarkable number of retweets, likes and support from similar organizations working in the governance and civic engagement space. The campaign also got both online and offline engagements from a pod of approximately 500 persons within his circle of influence.
The mini-campaign served to increase voter awareness with regards to issue-based governance as opposed to the unhealthy dance pattern existent between political parties, candidate choice and propaganda.
Featured Partners
Some organizations and people who are contributed to the success of this project.
