Stakeholders to Hold Town Hall Debate for Legislative Candidates
Udora Orizu in Abuja
With about 90 days to the 2023 general elections, OrderPaper Nigeria, and its partners are set to hold the first-ever citizens town hall and election debate for legislative candidates.
OrderPaper is hosting the event in collaboration with civil society partners which includes FixPolitics Initiative, Enough is Enough (EiE), Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), and the Centre for Transparency Advocacy (CTA).
It is being implemented as part of the VOTER (Validating the Office of the Electorate on Representation) Project with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Strengthening Civic Advocacy and Local Engagement (SCALE) Project by Palladium.
The event, scheduled to hold on Monday, December 5, 2022, at Sandralia Hotel, Jabi, Abuja, would play host to stakeholders in nation-building. It would feature National Assembly candidates for the two House of Representatives seats and lone Senatorial seat in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
All 18 registered political parties with valid candidates for the legislative polls have been invited for the event. The town hall debate thus presents an opportunity for the mandate seekers to showcase their legislative agenda ahead of the February 25, 2023, elections and answer pertinent questions on a wide range of subjects, especially as relating to the interests of constituents, the organisers explained.
The organisers described the event as part of their drive to encourage proper scrutiny of legislative candidates; with the aim of electing productive legislators’ integral to effective service delivery by government.
They add that Nigeria’s electoral system, as it is currently structured, encourages a bandwagon effect whereby legislative candidates are largely elected based on their alignment with popular executive candidates. This, they said was not necessarily on their individual merit, thus greatly affecting the quality of representation in our legislature.
Speaking on the event, the Executive Director of OrderPaper, Oke Epia, disclosed that the initiative has become imperative given the important decisions for citizens to make in the 2023 elections.
“For us at OrderPaper and our esteemed partners, we believe in the legislature being the foremost of the three branches of government in a representative democracy. “Having also been at the forefront of putting the spotlight on the institution of parliament for nearly ten years now, and (of course) with numerous endorsements, we consider it a call to duty to put this pilot series together for constituents resident in the Nigerian capital,” he said.
