By: Mohamed Jalloh
The National Council for Civic Education and Development (NaCEED) has organized a message development and dissemination seminar at the Ministry of information and communications conference room on Wednesday 10th September 2022.
The event convened civil society organizations (CSOs), political parties, elections management bodies and journalists to map out strategies by developing massages to be disseminated to the people, by way of allowing them to participate in the upcoming electoral process in a peaceful and tranquil manner.
Kalilu Totangi the Chairman of NaCEED underscored the need to involve political parties, CSOs and journalists, religious and traditional leaders who are useful in disseminating peaceful messages to their constituents, given that some of their voices are trusted by the people.
The chairman reveals that the average Sierra Leonean currently uses mobile phone as a means of communications and to that end, they have contracted a private messaging entity to deliver bulk messages to the electorate as a way of informing them about the electoral process.
A sample of the message delivered to the electorates reads: “Its election registration time and we encourage every citizen who is above 18 years old to exercise their right to register for their voters ID card. This will make you eligible to vote during voting time”.
Mr Totangi also stated that the services of the Political Party Registration Commission (PPRC) and the Electoral Commission of Sierra Leone (ECSL) were utilized in drafting messages that would be disseminated to the voters.
The Chairman said the NaCEED would collaborate with other stakeholders to engage voters in an interpersonal manner as a way of complementing the bulk messaging strategy to reach the voters.
Zainab Umu Morseray the Western region chairman of (ECSL) disclosed that they would work with other stakeholders to sensitize the voters about the provisions of the Public Elections Act 2022 and they have established the Ward Elections Committee (WEK) that incorporates youth leaders, town chiefs and religious leaders to localize the message and educate the people on the process of registration and voting.
Madam Morseray said the ECSL is earnestly working towards the preparation of the start of the registration of voters which is slated for the 3rd of September 2022, as according to her they have recruited adhoc staff to conduct the registration of voters and the exhibition of voter cards to the electorate.
She said the registration centers would be opened in phases that would allow any citizen that is above 18 years to register and vote.
“We would work with Statistics Sierra Leone and the national civil registration authority to extract the voter registration from the general civil registration”, Madam Morseray revealed.
She noted that the Voter register must be continuously updated after every electoral cycle because some people might have died and some might have left the shores of Sierra Leone.
Madam Morseray discouraged double registration and voting which she pointed out as a criminal electoral offence and admonished less than 18 years of age citizens to desist from inflating their ages to participate in the process, as according to her it would count against them.
She concluded by urging citizens residing out of Sierra Leone to return to the country and participate in the electoral process, as only citizens of Sierra Leone are allowed by law to register and vote.
Civil Society Organizations such as Campaign for Human Rights and Development Initiative (CHRDI) and Centre for Accountability and the Rule of Law (CARL) settled on the need for citizens to be law abiding and must eschew violence as a means to articulate whatever concerns or grievances.
The CSOs further reckoned that in as much as citizens’ rights must be guaranteed but it is incumbent on the people to know their responsibilities.
