Abuja, 30^th October, 2018. The West Africa Network for Peace Building (WANEP) in collaboration with the Commission of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the African Union (AU) and the Independent National Election Commission (INEC) of Nigeria have launched the Electoral Violence Monitoring, Analysis and Mitigation (EMAM) project in order to mitigate violence during the electoral process of the forth coming Nigerian general elections scheduled to hold in February 2019.

The EMAM project which was launched on 30^th October 2018 at the Commission’s headquarters in Abuja, is designed to facilitate and support local and national response architectures that link early warning with informed response to prevent or mitigate identified threats capable of affecting the peaceful conduct of the Nigerian elections.

This will be achieved by developing and validating indicators to inform specific monitoring and reporting of violent election threats by community monitors before, during and after the elections.

Speaking at the launch of the project, the representative of Commission’s Early Warning Directorate, Maimouna Konate stated that WANEP’s support to the operationalization of the ECOWAS Early Warning mechanism cannot be over emphasized as its National Early Warning Systems (NEWS) managers across the region form a part of the ECOWAS field monitors who populate the ECOWARN system with real time data on a daily and weekly basis.

Also Dr.Chukwuemeka Eze, the Executive Director of WANEP, noted that the responsibility of ensuring that elections in Africa are free, fair and credible cannot be shouldered by ECOWAS, African Union and its member states alone, hence there is a need for all Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and interested parties to make concerted effort to achieve success in electoral processes.

Dr. Eze stated that it is for this reason that WANEP is launching EMAM, a four-month long situational monitoring, analysis and mitigation of the 2019 general elections in Nigeria which involves the real time monitoring, analysis and communication of electoral risks with periodic debriefing of key stakeholders.

“EMAM will strengthen the capacity of civil society organisations for effective monitoring and reporting of pre-election, election and post–election violence indicators as well as enhance public participation and contribution to the prevention/mitigation of election violence in Nigeria’s 2019 elections”, he said.

The launch of EMAM witnessed keynote addresses and presentations from representatives of CSOs, the Commission’s Early Warning Directorate and Directorate of Political Affairs on election interventions and from WANEP on its NEWS platform for monitoring election violence in Nigeria amongst others.

Representing the INEC Chairman, Dr. Mohammed Lecky emphasized the importance of the project for the upcoming general elections while assuring the participants of INEC’s readiness to conduct peaceful, free and fair elections.

In recognition of efforts by INEC to enhance its measures to deepen and consolidate democracy, the representative of the African Union Commission, Mfrekeobong Udo Ukpanah urged all stakeholders to refrain from all acts of violence and use only peaceful and legal channels to express and address any disputes.

She also reaffirmed the AU’s commitment as partners of the project to sustainable peace and security in Nigeria especially during its election process.

The EMAM project is in furtherance of the WANEP/ECOWAS/AU partnership for peace and security in West Africa in line with its Memorandum of Understanding. Through its National Early Warning Systems, WANEP has contributed to the mitigation of electoral violence across the region.