Through her YMonitor Accountability Project, the Future Project Africa is set to hold its maiden public advocacy workshop on electoral reforms on Thursday, February 17th in Lagos and Saturday, February 26th in Kano.

The advocacy workshop will be an interactive sensitisation focused on empowering young people on electoral best practices and further driving restructuring and reforms of electoral systems in Nigeria.

Themed “Better Elections, Deepened Democracy”, the workshop is organised in partnership with American Corner, Ikeja, Nigerian Global Affairs Council (NIGAC), Enactus, Kano and African Focus for Youth Development (AFFYD). 

Speaking on the purpose of the workshop, The Future Project’s Programs Officer, Seun Oluyemi, said, “The public advocacy workshop on electoral reforms is aimed to dive deeper into the probable strategies and solutions necessary for a restructure of the electoral system, as well as a push for greater citizen participation in Nigerian elections. It will therefore serve as an interactive platform between influential voices in the civic space and active citizens to evaluate the current state of the Nigerian electoral system, while affording them an avenue to ask critical questions and get corresponding answers”.

“A major aspect of political leadership lies in the periodic elections which serve as a democratic assurance that guarantees citizens’ rights to elect their leaders freely. Electoral processes serve as the bedrock of every democracy, considering its centrality in legitimacy and mandate. While periodic elections remain a fundamental aspect of democracy across the world, its improvement and success can only be measured with metrics such as processes, procedures, technological adoption and outcome.” He concluded.

Seun added that the workshop’s outcome will be published in a communique highlighting participants and facilitators’ concerns on electoral reforms and will be widely disseminated through advocacy visits to public officers and across the online communities of The Future Project and its partner organisations.

With a mandate to build empowered citizens across Africa through inclusive enterprise and active citizenship, the advocacy workshop on electoral reforms further reinforces The Future Project’s commitment to changing the narrative of leadership and citizenship across Africa.