With about 90 days to the all-important 2023 general elections, Nigeria’s premier legislative and policy think-tank, OrderPaper Nigeria is set to hold its first-ever Citizens Town Hall and Election Debate for Legislative Candidates. The event is scheduled for Monday, 5th December at Sandralia Hotel, Jabi, Abuja.
In collaboration with civil society partners, the event, which will play host to stakeholders in nation-building, will feature the three National Assembly candidates in the Federal Capital Territory. All 18 registered political parties with candidates for the legislative polls have been invited for the event.
The town hall debate presents an opportunity for the mandate seekers to showcase their legislative agenda ahead of the 25th February 2023 elections, and answer pertinent questions on a wide range of subjects, especially those relating to the constituents’ interests.
Partners include FixPolitics Initiative, Enough is Enough, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, and the Centre for Transparency Advocacy. It is being implemented as part of the VOTER (Validating the Office of The Electorate on Representation) project with support from the United States Agency for International Development, under the Strengthening Civic Advocacy and Local Engagement project by Palladium.
According to the organisers, the event is part of their drive to encourage proper scrutiny of legislative candidates; with the aim of electing productive legislators integral to effective service delivery by government.
They said that Nigeria’s electoral system, as it is currently structured, encourages a bandwagon effect whereby legislative candidates are largely elected based on their alignment with popular executive candidates. This, they said, is not necessarily on their individual merit, thus greatly affecting the quality of representation in the legislature.
The Executive Director of OrderPaper, Mr Oke Epia said that the initiative has become imperative given the important decisions to be made by the citizens during the 2023 elections.
“For us at OrderPaper and our esteemed partners, we believe in the legislature being the foremost of the three branches of government in a representative democracy. Having also been at the forefront of putting the spotlight on the institution of parliament for nearly 10 years, and (of course) with numerous endorsements, we consider it a call to duty to put this pilot series together for constituents resident in the Nigerian capital,” he said.
