Professor Amos Sawyer arrives Abuja to lead ECOWAS observers to Nigeria's presidential election

Professor Amos Claudius Sawyer


April 14, 2011 11:22 ET

Professor Amos Sawyer arrives Abuja to lead ECOWAS observers to Nigeria's presidential election


ABUJA, April 14, 2011/African Press Organization (APO)/ -- The former President of the Interim Government of Liberia and Head of the ECOWAS Election Observation Mission to Nigeria's 16th April 2011 presidential polls, Professor Amos Sawyer, has arrived Abuja, the Nigerian capital, to lead 300 regional observers who are being deployed to the six geo-political zones of the country to observe the election.

Members of the Mission include ECOWAS Ambassadors, representatives of the ECOWAS Council of the Wise, representatives of civil society organizations, the ECOWAS Parliament and Court of Justice, electoral experts as well as representatives of electoral commissions from the 15 Member States.

Professor Sawyer who will be joined on Election Day by the President of the ECOWAS Commission, Ambassador James Victor Gbeho, was part of the ECOWAS Observer Mission to the 2008 general elections in Ghana. He led the organization's pre-election fact-finding mission to Ghana in October 2008.

Under its Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance, ECOWAS is required to dispatch fact-finding and observer missions to Member States conducting presidential elections as part of its determination to ensure democratic convergence across West Africa.

These missions also enable ECOWAS to determine appropriate assistance to be rendered to such States in order to ensure the conduct of free, transparent and credible elections in the region.


Source: Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS)