In an effort to make pupils active participants in the electoral process, INEC said on Monday in Abuja that it would ensure that voter education became part of the secondary school curriculum.
Prof. Lai Olurode, Chairman of the Board of Electoral Institute, INEC, said this at a roundtable of experts on voter education for principals and students of secondary schools.
The meeting had the theme: “Catching Them Young”.
Olurode said teenagers constituted a large percent of the entire population of the country and as such, the move would mean a more suitable approach for spreading voter education messages among the students.
“So that we can reach as many Nigerians as possible with regards to voter education messages especially to make sure that they are active participants in the democratic train.
“They register when they become of age; when it is time for election they go out to vote; and in terms of the entire election process they have a role to play at every critical moment of the election process.”
Olurode aid the role of voter education did not lie with INEC alone, but with all other stakeholders in the electoral process.
He explained that the move, intended to educate pupils on how to thumbprint on the ballot papers and how important voting was, would also address voter apathy and checkmate invalid votes.
“The mistakes that the older generations of voters are making, we wouldn’t want the younger generations to fall inside the same pit fall.
?“You spend your time to queue, you get registered, after you have been registered on the election day you get accredited.
?“You spend the whole day getting accreditation you spend the whole day exercising your franchise; at the end of the day for your ballot to be declared invalid because it is void; because you have wrongly thumb-printed; that is why we are addressing this issue.”
He said that the meeting would be extended to zonal and state levels to include the contributions of Resident Electoral Commissioners, school principals and other key players in the electoral process.
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