Facebook To Assist INEC On 2019 Election

Facebook, American social networking service, has offered to assist the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in its activities ahead of the 2019 general elections.

The California based company said it could help the electoral body expand voter education by engaging citizens across the country with a view to achieve peaceful elections next year.

Facebook made the offer when a team led by its Public Policy Director for Africa, Ebele Okobi, paid a courtesy visit to the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, at the agency’s headquarters in Abuja on Wednesday.

The social networking company said statistics on its network revealed that Nigerians engage more with politics related content.

“People care very deeply about how they are governed, about who governs them and other political issues. Knowing that people come to the platform to talk about what they care about, we have developed a politics and government programme essentially to understand how our platform is being used, not just during elections, but also to help governments engage with their citizens and also to see what the risks related to our platform in elections are and what opportunities and programmes can be put in place to address the risks,” Facebook said.

On his part, INEC chairman, Mahmoud said conducting elections in the country was a huge responsibility for the commission, as it comes with its own risk.
He acknowledged the large following INEC enjoys on Facebook, which he said is the largest among electoral bodies in Africa, and underscored its potentials for engaging citizens, disseminating information and dispelling fake news.

“A good election, I have always said, is a recipe for peace and a poorly conducted election could lead to violence and civil war. And part of it is the perception some people create on the social media,” he said.

“I think more people now get their news from the social media than the traditional media.”

The INEC chairman said the commission looked forward to working with Facebook in ensuring that the voting population gets the best to help them make informed choices at the polls.

Facebook has a membership base of 2.1 billion worldwide with about 80 million from Nigeria.