Yiaga Africa has commenced preparations for the 2027 general elections, announcing plans to deploy more than 3,000 observers across the country to monitor political campaigns, developments and election-related violence.

The organisation also said it would activate 774 long-term observers, one in each local government area, to monitor the pre-election environment and provide early warnings on potential threats to peaceful elections.

Speaking on Friday at a two-day national training for State Focal Persons and trainers on the WatchingTheVote (WTV)/Parallel Vote Tabulation (PRVT) methodology in Abuja,Director of Programmes, Yiaga Africa, Cynthia Mbamalu, said the training marked the official launch of the organisation’s national deployment for the 2027 elections.

Mbamalu said 42 trainers and 47 state coordinators were being trained to cascade the exercise to the states and facilitate the recruitment and training of local government supervisors and observers.

She said, “This is our official launch of our national deployment for the 2027 elections and we commenced today our training of trainers.

“Today, we’re training 42 trainers who are going to be equipped to go to the state level and train our long-term observers.”

According to her, the state coordinators would recruit one local government supervisor in each of the 774 local government areas, who would in turn recruit more than 3,000 observers for the election.

She explained that the observers would begin monitoring the pre-election environment from September, with particular attention to political party campaigns and activities, political developments and incidents of violence.

“Based on INEC’s timetable, campaigns have started and for us, once campaigns begin, elections have started,” Mbamalu said.

She said the violence monitoring component was designed to establish an early warning and preventive system capable of identifying and mitigating threats before election day.

“The idea of violence monitoring is to build a preventive or early warning system that prevents and mitigates election day violence,” she said.

Mbamalu said the organisation would track incidents at the local government level and share its findings with security agencies to ensure that emerging threats were addressed ahead of the elections.

She said the approach was particularly important following incidents recorded during previous elections, stressing that Yiaga Africa’s objective was to promote a transparent and peaceful electoral process capable of strengthening citizens’ confidence in election outcomes.

On the organisation’s Parallel Vote Tabulation methodology, Mbamalu said the process was necessary in the Nigerian context because of persistent concerns about the credibility and transparency of election results.

She, however, called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to provide greater clarity on the electronic validation of polling unit results under the new procedures.

According to her, the introduction of an electronic EC8A should not only facilitate result validation but also enable voters, citizens and media practitioners to understand what happens to the data at every stage of the process.

“We need clarity on what happens with that validation process. That EC8A, where does it go to? What is it used for? And can voters, citizens and media practitioners have access to what happens there?” she asked.

Executive Director of Yiaga Africa, Samson Itodo, said the organisation had “switched gears” into full preparations for the 2027 elections following the conclusion of the Osun governorship election.

Itodo said the organisation’s PRVT methodology was highly technical and required extensive capacity building for those who would implement it across the country.

“For just the general elections, we’re going to be hosting over 130 different trainings because election observation isn’t a tea party. It’s a very systematic, highly technical exercise that requires investment in capacity building,” he said.

He said the state focal persons were being trained on the methodology, statistical principles, the Electoral Act, INEC guidelines and new procedures introduced ahead of the 2027 elections.

“They are also going to be trained about stakeholder engagement, security, recruitment and pre-election observation,” Itodo added.

He said Yiaga Africa would activate its 774 local government supervisors in the coming weeks to monitor political developments and campaigns and assess whether the pre-election environment remained conducive to free and peaceful political activities.

Itodo expressed appreciation to the European Union for supporting the organisation’s preparations under its governance project.