By Linus Aleke
The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), has pledged to remain independent, impartial and neutral, on issues concerning the conduct of the 2023 general elections.
The Executive Director of the Centre, Idayat Hassan, in a statement, said, she writes in response to false accusations made in a recently disseminated article concerning its work in the coming elections.
CDD noted that in the said article, the author of the piece unfairly twisted its position on pending elections to some vacant seats at the Senate and House of Representatives by falsely asserting that the Centre was making excuses for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The article she said, further posited that to excuse INEC’s refusal, Idayat Hassan, Executive Director of the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), a non-governmental think-tank, argues that “no doubt the forthcoming 2023 elections have preoccupied the attention of INEC”.
“This unfortunate misrepresentation goes at odds with the position of the CDD which is already on public record. These comments can be seen in a Punch newspaper, dated 9 August 2022, concerning the issue of vacant seats in the National Assembly due to the resignations of senators elected to the leadership of the All-Progressives Congress (APC) party. The article states that the Director of CDD, Idayat Hassan, also confirmed the position taken by Aigbe [CDDs senior programme officer] saying that the issue of representation is important, but no doubt the forthcoming 2023 elections have preoccupied the attention of the INEC.” However, she said, “it’s important they conduct elections into those constituencies not to deny constituents of representation,” the statement reads in part.
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Hassan said, its work remains to serve as the ultimate catalyst in the transformation of the West African sub-continent into an integrated, economically vibrant and democratically governed community that assures holistic security to the population and is capable of permanent peaceful conflict management.
To support this, over the years, she said, CDD has strengthened the capacity of different stakeholders, including government agencies and parastatal and has also been very active in activities that will improve democracy and ensure lasting peace.
She added, the Centre has been vocal in offering criticism of electoral processes when merited, as it did in the 2019 general and off-cycle elections, as well as even stressing the need for INEC to remain vigilant after the recent 2022 Ekiti and Osun off-cycle elections.
The statement concluded that CDD statements on the elections speak to the realities of the process and consistently stress ways that election processes can be improve
