Group Seeks to Tackle Voter Apathy with Vote023 Campaign
Ugo Aliogo
The Founder of Emergent Labs, Emeka Mba, supported by Angela Ochu-Baiye, a social entrepreneur and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Inspired by Jela, has launched an initiative tagged ‘Vote023’ to drive Nigerians’ consciousness towards civic responsibility.
The initiative, which was launched in Lagos, is a non-partisan incentive-driven voice call campaign.
It aimed at influencing behaviour and driving action by providing compelling reasons to participate and show Nigerians that the future of the country was primarily in their decision to become active contributors in the electoral process.
Mba explained that: “Nigerians who do not participate in the electoral process have legitimate reasons for not participating. While most believe, rightly or wrongly, that results are predetermined and their votes do not count, others pull back because of personal safety and security reasons.
“Hence, we are launching Vote023 to correct this voter apathy by creatively sensitising Nigerians and giving them strong reasons to vote at the forthcoming 2023 elections.
“The objective is to deepen the citizens’ consciousness of their civic obligation and drive more engagement in the voting process.
“This is how it works. You visit Vote023.org and you will see two options- you can call the number in one of the boxes and listen to our pre-recorded non-partisan message in your preferred language reminding you to vote in the upcoming 2023 elections and we would send you an SMS and credit you with N100 airtime instantly.
“If you input your number or anyone else’s, you or the person will get the same pre-recorded message and receive N100 airtime instantly.”
A collaborator in the project Ochu-Baiye, said it was not enough to get have the Permanent Voter’s Card (PVC), adding that the Vote023 campaign was designed to engender that very important action of actual voting, “and we are doing this through strategically placed messaging in different languages and incentivising it for more reception.”
According to her, “Apart from these pre-recorded non-partisan messages, I also created the theme song titled ‘The Call’, produced by the renowned Gospelondebeatz of SCRiiPO, that has been placed on multiple radio stations nationwide to complement other communication efforts and encourage massive voting at the 2023 elections.
“Our goal is to reach over 23 million Nigerians with 23 reasons to vote during the 2023 elections. Like we have stressed, this project is not affiliated to any political figure or party. Our emphasis is on principles and data, not parties or persons.”
