EUROPEAN UNION ELECTION OBSERVATION MISSION NIGERIA 2019 VISITS APCON HOUSE

The representatives of the European Union Election Observation Mission Nigeria 2019 visited APCON House recently in Abuja, the  team was headed by Inta LASE, media Analyst. The team analyses political, electoral, legal regulatory and other issues related to the electoral process.

The members of the team, who are currently in Nigeria,  has the mandate  to assess election based on International standards. They  were received by the Ag. Registrar of the Advertising Practitioner’s Council of Nigeria, APCON, Mrs.Ijedi Iyoha, rpa.

Responding to the questions on compliance/ regulatory issues on  Campaign activities of the political parties, Mrs. Iyoha informed the team that APCON   recorded about  65% compliance from the political parties who submitted their advertising campaigns  for vetting and approval which is an improvement from the 2015 general election. However, the support groups for the political parties have not complied with the extant laws. On violations, APCON has captured and recorded several  violations.

On the issues of sensitization of our mandate, she continued that APCON had several Public fora and collaborations with the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) on political communication, press mentions/ releases, radio  and television appearances, meetings with political parties at INEC office, to educate the political parties, party agents, media practitioners, support groups etc, on the need for the advertising campaigns to be issue based and free from hate speech.

The European Union Election Observation Mission is here in Nigeria, through the invitation of the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) to observe  the general Election, and had been doing this since 1999.

Concerning the challenges faced by APCON in discharging its regulatory  mandate, Mrs Iyoha mentioned :

1.     The resentment of the code by some political parties

2.     The propagation of hate speech through the social media

3.     Non compliance by the media organisations

4.     Inadequate funding

5.     Inability of APCON  to cover the country effectively.