Liberia lauds Nigeria for support on biometric voter registration

The Chairman of Nigeria’s National Independent Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Mahmood Yakubu, has received accolades from Liberia for the strategic role INEC played in supporting the country’s first-ever biometric voter registration exercise, conducted for the Liberian general election of October 2023.

In gratitude to INEC, Yakubu was conferred an honorary award by the Chairperson of the National Elections Commission (NEC) of Liberia, Davidetta Browne Lansanah, per a report by Nigerian daily Leadership. While bestowing the distinction on Yakubu during the recent inauguration of a technical workspace for NEC personnel in Monrovia, Lansanah praised Nigeria’s elections management agency for the technical support given to Liberia over the years, and particularly Yakubu’s role as the President of the ECOWAS Network of Electoral Commissioners (ECONEC) in championing information and experience-sharing among electoral agencies of the West Africa region. Lansanah first solicited Nigeria’s support for its biometric voter registration plan during a visit to INEC in July 2021.

For his part, the INEC boss thanked NEC for the recognition, and restated the importance of maintaining a strong level of collaboration among the election management bodies of ECOWAS. Peer support and intergovernmental collaboration, he emphasized, is crucial for election agencies, especially as some governments allocate lean resources for election matters.

Yakubu recalled the collaboration between INEC and NEC during Liberia’s 2017 elections, wherein IT experts from both agencies synergized efforts to set up a voter’s register.

Liberia deployed biometric voter registration for the first time in its electoral history with the aim of curbing the litany of electoral malpractices that have rocked the country’s past elections.

In December of last year, suppliers of the biometric technology, Neurotechnology and Laxton Group, said their work helped provide a trusted voter registry for the 2023 presidential election, which saw incumbent President George Weah lose his re-election bid.

Article Topics

Africa  |  biometrics  |  elections  |  fraud prevention  |  Liberia  |  Nigeria