Facebook has offered to explore
avenues with the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, that could
help expand voter education and engage citizens meaningfully to achieve
peaceful general elections in 2019.
The social networking giant made
this offer having noticed that topics Nigerians mostly shared on its platform
bordered on elections and politics
According to INEC, this offer was
made when a team from Facebook 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.
Facebook, which noted that it has
a membership base of 2.1 billion worldwide and 80 million from Nigeria,
discovered that, “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.
”
Okobi disclosed that the company
was open to ideas on how best it could improve its services and the electoral
processes in Africa, particularly in Nigeria.
Responding, the INEC boss, Yakubu
told the team that organising and conducting elections was a huge
responsibility for the commission and comes with enormous risks.
“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.
He acknowledged the large
following the electoral body enjoys on Facebook, which he said is the largest
among election management bodies in Africa, and underscored its potentials for
engaging citizens, disseminating information and dispelling fake news for
peaceful elections.
While acknowledging that Facebook
has become one of the veritable means of interacting with the public, Yakubu
said, “I think more people now get their news from the social media than the
traditional media”.
The INEC chairman thanked
Facebook for pulling down fake pages of the commission from its platform just
as it commended, “the social media giant” for also putting mechanisms for
checking hate speech and fake news in place.
He 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.
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