The Executive Director of Africa Vision 525 Initiative has called for research on elections in Africa with the aim of improving on grey areas that would ensure peace before, during and after elections in Africa.
He made this statement at a workshop on Election Research organized by Tertiary Education Trust Fund in collaboration with Africa Vision 525 initiative at the National Electoral Institute in Abuja.
According to him, the practice of democracy, the world over, is for development of humanity and that should be a strong reason for commitment of researchers in aspect so as to proffer solutions to incessant crises orchestrated by elections especially in African continent, ”all over the world, the essence of democracy is to develop humanity or development and so it should be the strong reason for researchers to be committed to it”, he said.
In a paper presented at the occasion, the Director opined that there is urgent need for African scholars and Non-governmental organizations to undertake election-focused research with funding support mainly from local sources, one of which is TETFUND’s window of support for research publications.
He identified women as strong instruments for peace in governance as opposed to African belief system that the place of women is in the Kitchen and called for training of girl-child, even as women in position of governance were doing well in maintaining peace all over the world.
Speaking in the same vein, Professor Alkassum Abba of National Open University of Nigeria submitted that bad governance anywhere in the world starts with bad elections, hence the need to research on how elections were conducted whether free and fair or those ones that were outrightly rigged.
He said such research would bring to fore steps to be taken in order to right the wrongs, while calling on scholars that it is high time they shifted focus on election research in Nigeria and the entire African countries.
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