"The purpose of the training is for the participants to know the purpose of watching the votes."

Yiaga Africa has trained over 62 journalists and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) on pre-election observation methodology for the 21 September governorship election in Edo State.

The Media and Communication Officer of Yiaga, Jennifer Dafwat, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Wednesday in Benin.

Mrs Dafwat said the participants consisted of 19 females and 43 males drawn from media and CSOs in the state.

She said, "We have representations of about 30 Media Houses and 13 CSOs.

"The programme is tagged: "Yiaga Africa's Watching the Vote (WTV)-Elections Academy"

"The purpose of the training is for the participants to know the purpose of watching the votes.

"The training will enable the participants to have deeper understanding of this methodology and pass it down to the citizens

"It is through citizens' reports that we get pre-election observations, procedures and any other analysis," she said.

Earlier, Paul James, programme manager of Yiaga, said that the Yiaga team would collate data from 300 of the 4,419 polling units in Edo State.

Mr James said that 25 Yiaga election observers would be deployed across the 18 local government areas of the state.

He emphasised the deployment of information communication technology and statistics to build citizens' confidence in the forthcoming poll.

Nnamdi Aduba, a professor and board member of Yiaga, called for knowledge and intelligence sharing.

Mr Aduba, a lecturer at the University of Jos, lamented the "convoluted nature" of Nigerian politics and "avoidable irregularities" during the country's polls.

He argued that it was easy to win voters' support in an election if the electoral process was transparent and credible.

"I am so happy about what I am seeing around; democracy is for everyone. If you empower the natives, you will know that they are not stupid," he said.