The Atta Mills Institute (AMI) has once again been invited by ECOWAS to join a team of Elections Observers in Nigeria.
The West African country goes to the polls on Saturday, February 25, 2023.
The founder and CEO of Atta Mills Institute, Samuel Koku Anyidoho, is in Lagos, Nigeria, as part of the 250-member Observer Mission and is accompanied by another member of AMI, Maxwell Okamafo-Addo.
The Atta Mills Institute joined ECOWAS Observer Missions in Guinea, Conakry and Cotonou, Benin for elections in 2021 and 2022, respectively.
The Head of the ECOWAS Mission is former President of Sierra Leone, His Excellency Ernest Bai Koroma, and has as his Deputy, His Excellency Alhaji Baba Kamara, Ghana’s High Commissioner to Nigeria and Permanent Representative to ECOWAS during the tenure of President John Evans Atta Mills.
The election is being contested by 18 political parties duly registered with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of Nigeria, with four major ones being visibly dominant – the ruling All-Progressive Congress, the People’s Democratic Party, the Labour Party (LP), and the New Nigerian People’s Party.
This year’s election seems to be very intriguing since Nigeria returned to democratic governance in 1999 after years of military rule
The total number of registered voters is estimated around 95 million and expectations are very high amidst a change of the naira, which has caused a shortage of the currency.
Many International Observers are in Nigeria alongside ECOWAS – including the African Union and the European Union.
Local civil society groups have also been accredited by INEC.