ELECAM Nkambe uses football to boost voter registration in Donga Mantung Division

The Nkambe Council Branch of elections management body, Elections Cameroon, (ELECAM), is banking on football to lure masses in a drive that could add up to half a thousand more people to the electoral roll before the end of the exercise next month.

Launched on June 15, the voter registration initiative considered by organizers as inclusive and dubbed “one player, one fan, one elector” targets football stakeholders during this long holidays that is also marked by several football competitions across the Sub Division.

Yumbem Taku, ELECAM Nkambe Council Branch Head said the new campaign follows a special door-to-door sensitization that aims at getting people of voting age in the subdivision register on electoral registers ahead of future elections in the country.

“We choose Football because we know that it will rally many youths; footballers and fans, who in the past years have be reluctant to participate in the political life of the country. We want to use football and get closer to the youths,” said Taku.

He said ELECAM staff will be deployed to the various pitches on match days of the different competitions ongoing in the subdivision. There, they will register young people who have attained voting age and possess a National Identity Card.

One of the crowd-pulling football or soccer tournaments going on in Nkambe is the “Mafor Yah Judith Epse Achidi Peace and Unity Football Tournament”. The competition that is in its fourth edition this year kicked off on Sunday June 16, 2024 with hundreds of people present at the Nkambe Municipal Stadium.

About 1,500 registered since January

Taku has called on soccer stakeholders in the subdivision to assist the election management agency in the exercise that targets the registration of at least 500 new voters by the time the registers close on August 31.

“Since the start of the voter registration exercise in January 2024, we have registered about 1,500 new electors and we expect that by the end of this special campaign and with the support of all stakeholders, we can attain 500 new register voters,” Taku told NewsWatch by phone.

The challenge however remains the non-possession of National Identity Cards by young people who have attained voting age in the subdivision, the Nkambe Council Branch Head of ELECAM regretted.

If the electoral calendar is respected, then general elections – municipal, legislative and presidential – will be organized in the country in 2025. Cameroonians of voting age (20 years and above) including those in Nkambe, who would have been registered, will be called to elect municipal councilors and members of the National Assembly and the president of the Republic.

The Nkambe Council Branch Head of ELECAM has called on all villagers, especially young people who have just attained the voting age to mobilize and ensure they are not left out of the exercise.

“Our doors are open…We also want to invite all political party leaders here in Nkambe to sensitize their militants on the need to get registered so they can exercise their civic duty when the time comes,” Taku told NewsWatch.