Group To Monitor 2023 General Elections With Drones

The Advisory Council of All Nigerian Nationals in the Diaspora (ANNID), an election observer team, has concluded plans to deploy drones to monitor the 2023 general elections.

The group’s president, Dr. Peter Mozie, told newsmen Friday during an online meeting that the measure was to ensure free and fair polls. He said following past challenges his group had encountered during election monitoring in Nigeria, the group, aside drones, would deploy more modern technologies to monitor the elections.

ANNID has been involved in electoral matters in Nigeria since 2011 in the areas of training of INEC accredited observers/monitors, and organizing voter education/awareness programmes in the six geo-political zones of Nigeria, Mozie said.

Quoting him, “We’ve always deployed our UN-institute trained international election observers to observe elections across the continent.

“In 2015, during Nigeria’s general elections, ANNID was the only organization that was able to deploy observers in the 36 states and FCT.

“ANNID in collaboration with Nigerian American Public Affairs Committee (NAPACUSA.ORG) will participate in the pre-election, elections, and post-elections activities in the 2023 general elections.

“ANNID will most monitor the coming Nigeria elections with drones. This has become very necessary to seriously checkmate election rigging, vote-buying, under-aged voting, and other forms of electoral frauds, especially on the election days.

“Elections well observed and monitored are major conflict prevention tools by bringing credibility and legitimacy to the election processes. It also goes a long way to deter election frauds in all areas.”

Our correspondent reports that Mozie is also the global chairman and grand patron of the Eastern Union (EU), a group championing political emancipation of the old Eastern Region of Nigeria.