2019: Let your campaigns be issues driven, Savannah Centre tells aspirants

By Tobias Lengnan Dapam

Savannah Centre for Diplomacy, Democracy and Development (SCDDD) has told aspirants gearing up for the 2019 elections to ensure that their campaigns are issues driven.

The Centre in a congratulatory message Wednesday by its Executive Director, Ambassador Abdullahi Omaki said, “Now that the primaries are put behind us, the Centre wishes to reiterate its earlier appeal to all stakeholders, especially the candidates, parties, electoral administrators, the security agencies, the electorate and indeed the international community, to ensure that the next phase of the political campaigns slated from November 18 2018 to the elections in February and March 2019 are issues-driven interactions rather than engaging in acts that could promote hate, divisiveness and intolerance that can impact negatively on the processes leading to the elections in 2019.

“As a Think-tank and advocacy Centre, Savannah Centre is committed to good governance and peaceful democratic processes in Nigeria and Africa, thereby contributing to the nation and continent’s efforts towards establishing the culture of peaceful, transparent, free, fair and credible elections and encouraging where necessary, ideology-basedand issues-driven party politics and electoral processes that are strictly guided by rule of law, for the emergence of competent and effective leadership that would drive effective and sustainable good governance for our country. 

“In order to remain steady in the overall objective of an acceptable outcome of the electoral processes devoid of violence, Savannah Centre would continue to do whatever it can to prevent the derailment of the processes through sustained collaborative engagements with critical stakeholders as it did in 2015 through its Council of the Wiseinitiative as well as its recent programme on hate speech. 

As a Centre, we shall continue to work assiduously towards peaceful, relatively violence-free elections and a better democratic polity that can guarantee justice, inclusiveness, cohesion and sustainable development of our country.”