The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has expressed optimism that lessons from the 2023 general elections in Nigeria are crucial to strengthening electoral management across the West African Sub-region.

The Head of the ECOWAS Network of Electoral Commissions (ECONEC) post-election mission, Davidetta Browne-Lansanah, raised the hope during a follow-up and NEEDS assessment visit to the Headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Abuja.

The meeting was aimed at reviewing Nigeria’s implementation of recommendations made by the ECOWAS Election Observation Mission (EOM) following the 2023 General Election.

Browne-Lansanah was accompanied by the Deputy Chairman (Corporate Services) of Ghana’s Electoral Commission, Dr. Bossman Asare; Acting Permanent Secretary of ECONEC and ECOWAS Electoral Assistance Division Head, Serigne Mamadou Ka as well as experts from GIZ, EISA, and International IDEA.

She said, “This joint post-2023 election follow-up and needs assessment mission to Nigeria is a peer-to-peer review of our presence here during the 2023 elections, but more importantly, the recommendations that we offered, which were outlined in a report of our visit here.

“We have come to see how best INEC has implemented those recommendations. We anticipate that during our engagement, we may be able to understand reasons for some of the issues that came out of the 2023 elections and how INEC was able to navigate in a way that it has found answers to those challenges that abound during the 2023 elections. We see this mission as a lesson learned, not just for INEC Nigeria, but also for our own institutions, our own election management bodies, because as we know, problems or challenges that are faced by any election management body are often faced by election management bodies throughout our region.

“The fact that we can sit down and talk about what we went through and how it impacted on our work during elections, I think we may be able to use those recommendations again to better situate our individual election management bodies when we return to our various countries. So let me say on behalf of the team that we are happy to be here and we are happy for your warm welcome all the time. But let me go further to say that Liberia, the National Elections Commission, appreciates you in particular for your stance to ensuring that we do a good job as we have done here in Nigeria.

“More importantly, INEC has supported through material sharing with the National Elections Commission in Liberia. Because of your intervention, we now have an ICT room, basically supported by your efforts. And I get emotional, sorry, when I speak about these years, because when we needed support, we realized that ECONEC was there for us.

“Through ECONEC and its principles and ideals, Nigeria actually responded to our needs. So I want to ask you to give a round of applause for Professor Mahmood and the Commissioners and the team of INEC Nigeria. So to conclude, I will say that the mission here is one that is determined to learn.

“We want to learn what happened, so that we use your expertise in dealing with the problems and challenges to better situate our individual election management bodies and processes.”

Earlier, the chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, said the commission had reviewed all recommendations made by the ECOWAS Election Observation Mission (EOM) following Nigeria’s 2023 general elections.

According to him, INEC has taken steps on those within its administrative mandate while awaiting legislative action on others.

Yakubu said the observer mission had issued 37 recommendations in which 13 were addressed to INEC and 24 to other institutions, including the National Assembly, security agencies, regulators, civil society organisations, the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), and political parties under the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC).

Yakubu explained that INEC had acted on recommendations requiring administrative measures and incorporated them into its 142 reform proposals now before the National Assembly, while legal aspects remain under parliamentary review.

“Of the 13 observations specifically addressed to INEC, the commission has considered all the recommendations that require administrative action to implement while waiting for the conclusion of the ongoing legal review by the National Assembly on aspects of the recommendations that require legislative intervention.

“The commission has prepared a detailed response on each of the 13 observations, most of which are already contained in our 142 recommendations for electoral reform which resulted from wide-ranging consultations with critical institutions and stakeholders, a copy of which has already available on our website.

“The review report as well as the main 2023 General Election report and other relevant documents, are also available on our website. Nevertheless, hard copies of these reports and documents, have been included in your document bags for this meeting.”

Yakubu commended ECOWAS for its continued support. (AriseNews TV)