Dear SR Reader: The SaharaReporters election team is now in the process of wrapping up its coverage of the 2011 Nigeria elections.
Dear SR Reader: The SaharaReporters election team is now in the process of wrapping up its coverage of the 2011 Nigeria elections.
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For many years, Nigerians have endured elections that were badly planned, terribly implemented, and thoroughly rigged. In 2011, SaharaReporters wanted to play a part in trying to bring credible elections to the country by shining light into distant and dark corners of the electoral process and of the country from voters registration to election collation.
To do so, we relied on our growing network of citizen reporters: men and women throughout the land committed to the idea that free and fair elections are an imperative in Nigeria, and that we can each do something to institutionalize them.
Through these patriots, we wanted to report fully on the preparations for, and implementation of these elections. Through these citizen reporters, we focused on the electoral commission and the candidates, and we reported the elections as they happened.
The 2011 elections are now over, and while we look forward to future elections, we are satisfied that we contributed our part in enhancing the quality of this years’ experience and uncovering its shadier dimensions in real time.
This undertaking is immense. Nigeria is a huge country, and the technologies available to us are still evolving. The commitment of Nigerians to achieving credible elections, however, surmounted every hurdle.
At SaharaReporters, it was always clear to us that through the April 2011 elections, the Nigerian people desperately sought change, a hunger that was sometimes thwarted by unscrupulous INEC officials and desperate party operatives who compromised the electoral process and declared bogus figures in support of candidates mainly of the so-called powerful ruling party.
We feel vindicated on several fronts in this regard, but the gubernatorial election in Imo State is probably the best illustration of several reports we have carried in the past few weeks. In the presidential election of April 16, Governor Ikedi Ohakim "delivered" about 1.4 million votes to Goodluck Jonathan to enable the candidate carry the state decisively.
With the eyes of the world prominently and closely focused on that same state, however, the governor could not win for himself more than a meager 300,000 votes—about one-fifth—of what he allegedly won for Goodluck Jonathan in the presidential race! This substantiates our reports that that the presidential election result was seriously padded with phantom numbers.
Imo is therefore also a remarkable demonstration of the power of citizens reporting themselves. As we wrap up our 2011 election coverage, we would like to extend our sincere gratitude to all the citizen reporters who made our extensive live coverage of the election possible and visible across Nigeria.
Our focus will now shift to the Nigerian judiciary and the election tribunals, as well as concrete governance issues. Through the courageous reporting that SaharaReporters is known for, we will continue to shine the light into every corner of public life and hold “elected" officials to account. We urge you to work with us, and by doing so, to help our country and our children.
In the year ahead, SaharaReporters will aim at extending its ability to contribute to Africa’s public life by gradually building the platform into a full multimedia outfit incorporating television, Radio and wider use of social media technologies as they become available
We invite you to join us and commit to the liberation of Nigeria, Africa and indeed the black race. Our commitment is not to individuals or groups or parties, but to our corporate prosperity and respect as a nation and the integrity of our people. You can play a prominent part. We invite you to REPORT YOURSELF!
You can join on us on Twitter at #saharareporters, become a facebook fan by clicking the like button at : http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sahara-Reporters/96184337702
Once again thank you all especially citizen reporters who actively reported events from their mobile devices especially Blackberry Messengers (BBMs), and those aggressively reporting via email, Facebook, Twitter and text messages, as well as Nigerians who patiently waited to join our live broadcast on SaharaTV via skype, we thank you for making history with citizen reporting across Nigeria and lastly in Imo state
...Aluta Continua , Victoria Acerta
-SR Team , New York
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