2023 presidential election: TMG, CISLAC launch campaign promises compendium

In order to hold political officeholders accountable, the Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), has released a compilation of campaign promises by presidential candidates for the 2023 election.

According to the leading independent civil society election monitoring organization, the essence of the compendium is to remind elected leaders of their promises and hold them to account.

In his remarks at the launch on Friday in Abuja, the Chairman of TMG, Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, noted that the areas of focus the documentation took into account are security, health, economy, education, infrastructure, restructuring, anti-corruption and social inclusion.

Rafsanjani said: “I welcome you all to this Launch of a Compendium of Campaign Promises by leading presidential candidates in the just concluded 2023 election.

“The importance of today’s occasion underscores the core vision of the current Board of Transition Monitoring Group (TMG).

“As the foremost election observation and monitoring group in Nigeria, TMG cannot afford to fold its arm till every election cycle to be active in Nigeria’s quest for consolidated democracy.

“Hence, the vision is to see TMG move beyond election observation to governance monitoring.

“It is in realizing the new vision and contributing its quota to making information available to citizens as a tool to hold government to account, that TMG under the auspices of the SCALE project with support from the American people began documentation of the campaign promises of leading presidential aspirants as soon as the campaign period began.

“Often times, we have seen politicians outrightly deny promises they made after they have been elected to office, or just simply turn a blind eye to the promises made, especially when no one seems to hold them to account on those promises.

“Hence, TMG has documented promises from the 2023 election with the hope of presenting a tool that can be used to remind elected leaders and hold them to account on their own words.”

He added: “We adopted a straightforward methodology to documenting these promises, and this include desk reviews, constant monitoring of appearances of the candidates in different media and forum.

“More importantly we combed through the manifestos of the candidates which as far as we are concerned remain the most binding documents to the aspirants.

“Though a president has emerged from the electioneering process and other candidates are in court contesting the outcome of the election, however, it plays out, this publication will serve as critical tool to holding the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to account on his own promises.”

Attendees at the launch of the compendium include the Vice-Chair, Transition Monitoring Group, Miriam Menkiti, members of the Board of TMG, representatives of the SCALE Project, partners from the Civil Society, among others.