Celebs unite for public election sensitization

Celebs unite for public election sensitization
Top notch Nigeria celebrities in theatre, music and comedy scenes have come together on one common interest as Nigeria’s general election approaches.

This convergence of top players in the Nigerian entertainment industry is in fulfilment of a project tagged Register, Vote and Participation, (REVAMP) an initiative of the head of the Nigeria Youth in Diaspora, Asiwaju Dayo Israel.

According to him, the sole aim of this project is to raise awareness and also actively sensitize Nigerian youths as well as other members of the public on the essential need to register, vote, as well as protect their votes.

Dayo, who is also the head of GLEEND Foundation, noted that if effectively carried out will help eradicate or practically reduce rigging of people’s votes in the upcoming election.

The REVAMP Nigeria campaign involves the shooting of four videos, which will be in three different languages including English, Pidgin and Yoruba. These videos are slated for public viewing on different national television stations as from the 11th – 29th of January 2011.

The video shoot which was directed by Lukman Musa took place on the 6th of January 2011 at the Television Continental grounds in Ketu, Lagos and the top notch celebrities that featured in these video includes Joke Silva, Desmond Elliot, Kunle Afolayan, Kabirat Kafidipe, Doris Simon, Eldee, Ruggedman, Bouqui, Fada Basi, Halle, Gbenga Adeyinka and Emeka Smith.

While expressing her views on the project, ace actress, Joke Silva stated that she totally agrees with the fact that if more people register, vote and protect their votes, it would make it extremely difficult to rig these votes, while further adding that only few people have actually registered in the past elections, hence it had made it easy for the voter’s register to be manipulated with false names which has made rigging easy.

In his words, comedian, Gbenga Adeyinka acknowledged that he got involved when he got a blackberry message from Asiwaju Dayo Israel inviting him to the project. “After he had explained what the project was all about to me, I realized that this is what we really need to do. I have always believed that 70% of the voters are in my age bracket or younger but we have never seemed to realize that we can determine how our nation is governed. We all complain that Nigeria is bad, yet we won’t stand up to do something about it.”

“I believe that by doing this I am standing up and challenging Nigerians to stand up and determine how they are being governed as well as the kind of leadership they get. If we don’t do this now, then we will keep complaining.” He added.

On his view on the REVAMP Nigeria project, he says, “I think the whole REVAMP project is a fantastic idea. It means register and vote but most importantly, participate in the process. This is the only way we can ensure that our future as youths of this country is in safe hands.”