 Welcome back it is still the run-up and we promise to bring you conversations around voter education and you know 2023 is very close almost with us and this is what we're looking at actually building up to the 2023 general elections and how educated are the people around us how you know as 2023 elections draw near voter education is essential as it provides potential voters with the necessary information to make an informed choice in the vote in booth. It also informs on when, where and how to register to vote as well as when, where and how to vote. INEC as well as other election management bodies have made efforts to educate the people on various information and of course encourage participation of the public in election processes. Today we will be talking about why voter education is necessary and also encouraging voter participation and how we mean the studio Chukwemeka Mba. You're welcome. Thank you. Chukwemeka is a team lead for vote 023. She wants to tell us what vote 023 is about. Okay so vote 023 is an awareness campaign where we are talking to Nigerians through a public service line and we're giving them 23 reasons for them to vote to go out and vote in 2023 and one of the things we're trying to do is to bring to the spotlight voter apathy how bad it has been since 2007 turnout has really been low so we've sort of highlighted 23 reasons why you should go out and vote in 2023. Okay so let's bring it home 2023 is upon us I like to say it that way and how would you rate INEC's preparations especially towards voter education how would you rate their performance so far? Is this on a scale of 1 to 10 or just freelance written? I mean I think there's room for improvements there's room for improvement I'm aware that first of all PVC collection has started again you know but I'm yet to collect mine so I'm sure after now I'm just dashing down there and let's see what what happens I mean I've seen them particularly with INEC opening his database and the public getting to understand that okay we have a number of duplicates and what have you first of all I think that was impressive to do that I don't know if it's been done before and that sort of sends a signal that okay we are serious about this election and you know carrying the public along but I still feel that much has to has to be done to get in terms of rating I don't know what figure I'm going to give them so I'll just do that. You don't have to give this is what your organization does like you people are very much into educating people so it's why it's important you know to participate and this is what is also part of you know the duties of INEC and I know that there is the national orientation agency that is another conversation altogether what I'm trying to point out is there are organizations that these are their primary duties but then your organization also does something like this so I was hoping that you know from what you have done so far and what you've seen INEC do put it together and give us you know an outlook all right so what I would say to that is everybody has a part to play INEC is doing their own part um but I like to focus on what I can do okay as an individual organization all right so we ourselves set out on an audacious goal to reach out to 23 million Nigerians it's it's a tough job right and there are pockets of people also doing several things I have friends that are running some other organizations going through to defend be churches or student groups and ensuring that first of all the pvc registration and collection is happening all right so for me to grade INEC is almost like I have you know an insight to okay what are all the metrics that they set okay how far have they gone I can't really say what you get but what I would like to just focus on and highlight on is um what I'm doing and what other people are doing to also add and supplement to what all right so let's talk about what you're doing um you're you you're you have a team of course that you're working with how did you guys come together and do you know how did you birth this idea and what is it really like how what are your processes and how do you get along with it awesome thanks so interestingly my daytime job is I run a software company imagine labs and world vote o2tree.org is to or as someone says some sort of CSR initiative that's here to stay because we have the tech we have put together the solution and we're like okay um it came from an inspired place anyway and we had this solution at at the point of time when we had this solution we're not really thinking about the elections but you know from a place of you know inspiration and by that I mean by pressing our division that idea like you know this thing that you have you know why don't you take it to the public make it non-partisan because all I think is very non-partisan and why how do you spotlight on a lot of people who are not voting you don't have the right to complain about a country you're not doing anything about so we just okay you know what we looked at a lot of reasons and like interestingly just happened to just fall on 23 reasons so we look at um I was trying to target a lot of people that have never voted before so if you've never voted before about security is very important to you if you've never voted before but education is important to you justice important to you value of life is important to you then pick one of those reasons and it are you championing about let that be the reason that you go out and vote I'm not telling you who to vote for I don't really care about that but I know that um the category of people that are appealing to are hardworking people that are very educated and we believe they will make the right decision so this idea came up and we have the tech and I spoke to our current um um lead collaborator Angela to buy amazing person who okay Angela I have this idea I've viewed the tech or like okay you need to I need like ivory messages and Angela in 24 hours you know she came up with like all the ivory messages in different languages and like okay you need to do a public venture we had like a national launch in November 10th you have had a national November 10th at the Zumba and it was really amazing and since then we've processed um over 124,000 calls now for me like it's still way far behind what we need to do but we're having interesting conversations happening announcement that will make soon that I can't see right now but watch out you know that would really boost those figures um very soon so for me it was just more like you know from the idea to sharing with friends and then keep people that okay I will take care of media I will take care of the ivory I'll take care of like digital media and all that and then the team just came together the vision united us and right here today so if I if I were to ask you excuse me what the aim of your organization is I think you already hinted on that I'd like for you to elaborate yeah but then um where do you see this in the nearest future because 2023 is almost here yeah so I'd like to make it clear that um vote also three is here to stay voter apathy is not something we're going to cure overnight right it's not and I would not kid myself we're not going to stop it overnight but however we I mean the last figure was like 35 percent 35 and 70 percent if at all we can doesn't move that needle by even two percent it's a big success for us if we can get it to 96 sorry 36 37 percent and slightly higher that's use of kickboard because it's going to take a lot of work we have you know I was telling uh Collins that there's a group of people that were also targeting don't get me wrong we need to talk to the grassroots but I feel like it's easier to talk to middle class because I feel that they will make decisions based on you know what hardworking we need to protect our businesses the economy our health and things like that so we really want to appeal to that group of people you know so um that's that's my thoughts about that all right so um vote oh two three correct um is actually is more towards battling voter voter apathy but then you know what something else that comes hand in hand with voter apathy is vote buying or in this case vote selling um do you guys have a place to also fight that as well so there are there are lots of battles to fight lots of battles to fight and you have to just speak you know the one that you want to you know tackle to get so for for us we say that what we're doing is it's an awareness campaign a lot so sometimes we talk when we when when I speak to people like voter apathy was that you know how to go and quickly google what that is so like look these numbers have been you know um since um 2007 the numbers decided going down do you guys think this thing is happening to you complain about the country I've ever thought about voting before so we sort of bring that voter engagement participation and highlighting voter apathy uh together so for us it's more of like awareness you know and and then seeing that if our efforts would just adjust that need to and and then I keep saying that this is not just about presidential election it sort of trickles down to other elections gubernatorial and house of rep and all it just happens to be so that election is what and presidential election is what most people talk about so we have just write on that but it's more like okay we need to engage people so there's something that we were working on from next year called um body 23 and the idea is for us to okay yes you're going to vote right great but almost like a cell thing where I'm going to call if we chase my friend I'm going to call you on election day I'm coming to your house if you live close but I'm coming to your house both of us are going out to vote right so those are the things that we're starting now but it's not something that after election it ends now how can we make this body 23 skill imagine if you have like you know a million bodies that's two million people if you have 10 million bodies that's what you know 20 million people so that's all right you know when you talk about water apathy I like to think that it's a two-way thing first is the people the individuals who have lost trust and belief in the political um elite and then there is the political elite who is probably doing something wrong that is making the people lose trust in them and then one of the avenues of enlightenment is meeting and interacting with uh would be candidates themselves you know this kind of helps to bridge the gap as you get where I'm coming from so how how do you also you already have a ground you know leveled out to meet with individuals and the electorate how about the would be candidates do you have any plans of bringing them into this space into what you're doing well I have a wish list that I'm working on names I can't mention but I know that um so we we also run this um IG live sessions and there are names that we'll seek care to like we want them to talk about it and let people know you know about it because some of them actually care about these things so that's one way two and like I said we can't do everything we have to just focus on what's um we can't however I I know people I actually have friends that are doing something so like what you just said now there's a friend of mine that's doing something really brilliant where he's sort of organizing a town hall meeting but what he's doing is he's going through a estate residential associations right so imagine if I if I as a mecca alone just say you know I want to go and meet my local government rep one person they probably would just shown me but if I belong to and I do belong to like a residential association and they're like 2000 of us 8000 of us a while someone in you I want to ask you questions now because you want to appease those chances that you're going to listen to you at least you honor that invitation right so I just say that to say that there are pockets of people that are doing other things that we don't necessarily have to do but guess what so when he is engaging people on that front he gets to mention what 023 and when you engage me on what I get to mention what he's doing so it's almost like there's a synergy of different people doing certain things and collectively we hope to see that you know sparking something new this coming election I'm quite hopeful we're rounding off now quickly just before we go what are your final words to people who are watching you now and and yeah basically what you have to say to people who have already made up their mind that this 2023 no I am not going to vote probably because of you know all the all the many many reasons that we've you know been able to reel out this morning what are your words well so the first thing now says and a lot of people say you know my vote don't count but that's not true that's a lie that we've told ourselves because if it never counted people would not buy it that's one secondly if you decide not to vote then you have no right to complain all through 2023 so my advice is you know go out and vote right and be at peace with yourself that you attempted or you did something towards 2023 that's it all right thank you so much you can make out for coming on the run up this morning was amazing talking to you and it is still the run up will go on 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