Since 1999 when Nigeria started a new and its current longest walk in democracy there have been scores of elections held in Nigeria at all levels. The majority of these elections have resulted in dissatisfied parties (usually those who lost) and many have been taken to court for final determination. Most media houses have also weighed in their opinions of the credibility of elections in Nigeria, usually leveraging on external analysts.
However it is very rare to see these analysts making cogent points based on data analysis of the election results. This leads to arguing and people taking sides based on who sounds more convincing as opposed to credible figures, facts and data which are available and would make discussions more convincing. For this reason Election Monitor believes there is an urgent need to provide this capacity to journalists involved in assessing electoral outcomes.
Analysing election results data gives valuable insight into the veracity of election results by observing and assessing trends, deviations, inconsistencies etc. However it must be noted that quality data analysis is predicated on quality data. The integrity of the data is key. Election Results Analysis cannot determine how results were created (for example through rigging or genuine voting or a mixture) but it can interprete the results to gauge to some extent its accuracy.
General Objective
The key reason for this training program is to provide the political correspondents with the necessary skills to accurately analyse election results data with a view to increasing the quality of pre-election, Election Day and post-election reviews and assessments.
Specific Objectives
Specifically this training will provide the following competencies for participants:
- The importance and the ability of obtaining and keeping results data from elections.
- How to use Microsoft Excel to organize and interprete election data as well as create appropriate representative charts.
- Key data items that must be known in order to analyse the results successfully.
- Trends and observations which are germane to observe in order to get increased insight into the election results.
- Structure and how to write a comprehensive Election Results Analysis Report.
- How to make comparisons of elections based on retrieved data.
Target Audience
Journalists covering elections (political editors and/or correspondents): The media is the only way the average person can access quality information about elections. Because of this critical role, it behooves the media to develop the data analysis skills of their political correspondents. This will enrichen the media broadcasts and provide more credibility for the media houses while enlightening Nigerians in a more comprehensive manner.
Kindly download the application form in Microsoft Word by clicking the link below.
Kindly download the application form in Adope Acrobat PDF Format by clicking the link below.
Not a really good article. It might be good for some particluar country's citizens, specially people who belong to Africa. I am basically from Dubai so, I am not going to read this long blog.
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