The Chairperson of the National Elections Commission (NEC), Cllr. Davidetta Browne-Lansanah, at the head of a 3-member NEC delegation returned to Liberia on Saturday, July 31, 2021, after a 4-day study tour of the Independent National Electoral Commission of Nigeria (INEC). Chairperson Browne-Lansanah and entourage arrived in Abuja, Nigeria, on July 28, 2021 at the start of a 4-day visit to the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
At a welcome ceremony in her delegation’s honor on July 29, 2021, Cllr. Lansanah solicited support for the NEC’s adaptation of biometric technology for voter registration. She was hopeful that at the end of the study tour, lessons learned would inform how the Commission would proceed with the transition from the Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) Voter Registration System to the Biometric System Voter Registration.
The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission of Nigeria (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu, observed that nations are increasingly moving away from the manual processes by deploying more technology to further guarantee the electoral credibility. Professor Yakubu assured the Liberian EMB delegation of continued strengthening of the long-standing partnership with Liberia in the spirit of peer support. The study tour of the NEC’s delegation ended on July 30, 2021 with a visit to key facilities of INEC-Nigeria. The three-member Liberian EMB delegation were Cllr. Browne Lansanah, Commissioner, Floyd Oxly Sayor and Information Technology Specialist, James Dogbey.
In a related development, the Senior Gender Officer at the National Elections Commission, Manakapay Donzo, left Liberia Sunday for Lome, Togo, to attend a five-day training on building resources in democracy, good governance and elections (BRIDGE) model, inclusive electoral process training, focusing on gender for electoral administrators.
The NEC Senior Gender Officer, Manakapay Donzo, is in Lome, Togo, at the invitation of the ECOWAS Commission Electoral Division, with sponsorship from deuche-gesellsthaft-fur, International Peace and Security, and Architecture Operation EPSAO Project, under the German Technical Corporation (GTZ).