Later tonight, the second in the series of presidential town hall discussions organised by CDD and Arise Television will feature four presidential candidates. On November 6, the first CDD-Arise Television town hall held with the Presidential candidates of Labour Party (LP), the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) in attendance, while the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party was represented by the party’s Vice Presidential candidate.
A statement signed by CDD’s Director, Idayat Hassan notes that the second in the series of presidential town hall sessions, will air on Arise Television and on its YouTube and social media platforms.
Ahead of the 2023 elections, CDD and Arise identified the need to ensure citizens hear from the presidential candidates. This follows the frontline pro-democracy think tank’s constant campaign to ensure that the parties and candidates conduct issues-based campaigns as Nigeria counts down to the historic general elections of 2023. According to the townhall organisers, it is imperative that Nigerians hear how their future leaders plan to address the rising level of insecurity, considerable economic challenges and the impact of foreign affairs in domestic considerations.
“This has informed our engagements around the elections, from providing fact-checking support and working with partners to provide analyses on the election security terrain. The second town hall will be moderated by Rufai Oseni and Laila Johnson-Salami.
The presidential candidates participating include Omoyele Sowore (African Action Congress), Yabagi Sani (African Democratic Congress), Peter Umeadi (All Progressives Grand Alliance) and Adewole Adebayo (Social Democratic Party). The Nigeria Fact-checkers Coalition (NFC) will fact check claims made by the presidential candidates.
The NFC brings together fact checking organisations in the country, including Africa Check, CJID, Daily Trust, Dubawa, FactsMatterNG, ICIR, The Cable, FactCheckHub, The Insight, Digital Africa Research Lab, Premium Times and CDD to organise around countering disinformation and misinformation in elections and beyond.
“We hope that this town hall is yet another opportunity for Nigerians to listen to their presidential candidates.
We welcome other platforms and opportunities to support an issues-based campaign in the run-up to the 2023 elections. We are optimistic that such dialogue and engagement can only portend for better civic engagement and lead to a peaceful and reflective election outcome.”
