By Ihechimerem Enyinnaya
As a build-up to the By and Court Ordered/Re-run Elections, slated for February 3rd 2024, the Electoral Institute(TEI) on Thursday organized a one-day Training-of-Trainers Workshop at the Institute’s auditorium for Trainers that will be involved in the training for Election Officials and adhoc Staff.
The Trainers comprised TEI Trainers, selected staff from collaborating departments ( ICT and Electoral Operations) who came to enlighten the Trainees on Innovations recently Introduced into the election process. State Training Officers (STOs) also joined the ToT via ZOOM.
The workshop’s objective was to ensure that at the end of the training, participants would be able to organise and achieve detailed and effective training in all the affected states. Participants who are Coordinating Trainers should be able to demonstrate the ability to effectively train SPOs as well as Presiding officers and Assistant Presiding officer (POs/APOs) on billing and counting procedures. In the same vein they were to get themselves acquainted to operating the BVAS, have the capacity to upload election result on INEC Result portal using INEC Results Viewing Device ( IREV)
Addressing the trainees, the DG, TEI Dr. Sa’ad Umar Idris, urged the participants to
acquaint themselves with innovations/ new initiatives so they can easily pass the knowledge to the Supervisory Presiding Officers, Presiding Officers and Assistant Presiding Officers who would be working closely with some of them on Election day.
The DG further admonished participants to focus on the training as it was designed to galvanize their skills to further enhance the credibility of the Electoral process in country. He highlighted some of the innovation the Institute has introduced into the Electoral process like the E- learning platforms and INEC Training bot which was used during 2023 General Elections to enhance training and capacity building for Election Personnel. He urged the Trainers to highlight these E- platforms during the trainings in the respective states.
The National Commissioner and Chair BEI, Prof. Abdullahi Abdu Zuru who was represented by the DG Electoral institute, declaring the training open, tasked participants to be good ambassadors of the Commission as they represent the Commission while discharging their duties as Trainers, Coordinators and Monitors before, during and after the elections at the various States of the Federation they might find themselves.