this is the news africa coming up in the next fifteen minutes. on politics as nigerians get ready to cast the day's presidential elections to find out how the spread of fake news on that affects the results also coming up tensions are high go ahead to the polls on sunday compiz to nineteen of the votes are counted. mike welcome to news africa i'm glad you did two major elections coming up this weekend we're going to look at the polls for nigeria poll in a moment but fest cynical way comment fifty seven year old president will be seeking his second term in office senegal's peaceful transition of power have been

hailed as a beacon for africa tensions are rising this time and it's a problem of the ex-president abdulai awadi called for a boycott on the burning of election materials recent clashes between supporters of rival parties have left two dead and teamed up to organize a vote count an important move for peace and unity and to help prevent election rigging. busy times at the headquarters of sue new election in dhaka volunteers have been working for a week to assemble the observers kits two thousand election observers will be deployed across the country. election observers must monitor the ballots and fill in the form noting how the ballot is progressing at the opening at midday and until the closing and the announcement of the results. on the first floor is the situation room this is where the data will arrive after observers collect it at

polling stations the administrators here then responsible for the parallel vote calculation. day the administrators will get the observer data through s.m.s. messages these messages will be fed into the database and the managers will try to process this data analyze it so that they can see what is going well and what's not going so well. meanwhile the president macky cell was making the most of the time before polls open on the last day of his election campaign cell toward different neighborhoods in the capital. students have been bussed in to cheer for him they have reason to be optimistic makea cell is the front runner in the polls. turnout in the last election seven years ago was pretty low it's only fifty one percent this time around more people here seem keen to cause their vote especially young people and they're not put off by long queues to get their voters cards. come

up just about. all that is on. the senate bill and i cannot even talk i'm so happy i've been here for three days in order to get my card. many young voters favor one of the president's main opponents those months uncle tensions between supporters of different candidates have been high it's a look at this is an achilles a mature people we want peace for the elections and we want the winner to be respected we are a mature people and we want peace but you have overlapping. party i don't trust politicians or election administrators. preventing any potential fraud that is soo new elections mission it's the second time they've organized a parallel vote count this is going to see if. this kind of exercise helps to ease post-election tensions. because people get to find out everything about the

elections through the observation chain and so that's the lesson that we should also employ as many citizens. who came in to see. in the last election the figures were pretty accurate they deviated only one percent from the official results for the five thousand people involved in the observation campaign the stakes are high but the volunteers here are ready to do that that. now what's up is hugely popular across africa especially in nigeria but it can be problematic to what's up think news can spread fast making it an ideal two to money believes voters in the upcoming election ahead of the polls on saturday we asked people on the streets of lagos how they use the social media. phone. i use what's up every day now and then if. i was out fishing. has it been up i'm only like. i

was out because it is easy to use and i use it to fund the kids and also get information gathered. and gave one little force i just heard. about didn't think was going to get that information i think if only for your kind of need for my friends. to. look everything that you see was sad you believe i feel it's out any information i see myself ask but as a shy media i know money even if i think it was a lot. going for it. was if i shoot then obviously. so it seems like nigerians are pretty cautious what's up use this but that's not always the case says nick she's mine professor of them across the at the university of banning him who's just published

a report on the use of what's up in nigeria she's man thank you for joining us and now you call it nigeria's fast what's up election why only seen a lot of elections in nigeria and they've often used in recent times social media but the use of whatsapp has really been gaining pace and people in many countries in africa now use whatsapp way more than they would use email label than they would use text messages or facebook missions or so whatsapp is really becoming one of the dominant ways of communicating quickly and easily and at the mediate we think is one of the most important ways of communicating in nigeria so that's what makes this nigeria's first what's appalachian. i did say in time it's being used to spread fake news or why is it such a powerful tool in the spread in fake news well this two critical things one obviously works out is encrypted which means that the government or anyone else for

that matter can't actually tell what you're sending on whatsapp so people feel particularly protected now that's a good thing it can be used by civil society groups to promote human rights and to contest government abuse but it's also a dangerous thing in the sense that people who feel that they can push out messages without actually being punished or monitored might push out things that they know were not true and i'm actually dangerous and of course that's one of the things that we're seeing into munich now it's important to say that what's out doesn't invent these room straight rumors have always been an aspect of politics what it does is it helps them to circulate it's a bit like if you imagine going from a situation where there were some rumors kind of laying around on the ground that bits of paper and then applying a phantoms and the found spritz them so all of the corners of the country because what's at it works both in terms of the people that are on whatsapp talking to each other but also in terms of the way that whatsapp shapes the way that people talk about politics for example on radio shows with their friends in the community has

a remarkably good reach swell seek news stefania problem what's up is not going anywhere so how then do we tackle big news spreading. this is a major challenge fail the one hand we know the political room is not going anywhere as you say whatsapp is so popular it's certainly not going anywhere we see whatsapp trying to do a set of measures that will think so for example we seem to use by what's out of smaller groups that prevent people from forwarding messages hundreds of times we also see no other measures by whatsapp to try and fool people into make people think about the kind of measures that they're the kind of messages that they're circulating but the fundamental problem here is that while most of the things what's happened doing be able to achieve is they'll make it more difficult to secularly fake news on whatsapp they will make it impossible to circulate that user wants out so people who are determined to still be able to do it i think what that means is we need to look at the other side not so much the people sending the

messages but the people receiving and how can we cover those people to beat the messages more critically well know ted t.'s man professor of democrats the at the university of birmingham thank you very much for the time my pleasure. now every african or remember this nigerian or at least his voice. is known for bringing a social message into his music oh a new generation of musicians is following in his footsteps the project voice to rap is helping young artists to get their voices head and encouraging listeners to get involved and go to the polls. rehearsal's are underway at the chocolate city music studios and. these ten young musicians were selected from over four hundred hopefuls to join the project voice to represent which mentors up and coming artists with the social message they've

taken part in what shops aimed at promoting political engagement among young people . i say that it's important to always speak out. when you have. and i feel like after. this is going to be a great difference because the songs that i put out more conscious of it was spoken about but it's about different things and there's no better time to talk about it than now you know it's been four years since i last election and. you know. it's easy to remember something that is you know that happens to election period. joining some of nigeria's top entertainers for a series of concerts and only those with valid voters cons can attend. with elections looming engaging the country's young population is crucial. and music is

a great way to do that say the project organizers. we have young people while making socially cautious music for good governance for elections for women's participation. and also for the private sector and private sector integrity. i'm so we can get this woman to make music and train them and give them the platform to reach out and mentor of speaks in their interest and didn't endear us on the form and you're out there as well so our express it was on hold government accountable. music has often played an important role in one thousand year in elections with candidates calling on influential office for support the voice to read project aims to get young music lovers to think for themselves about the politics they want for their country. now i'm a huge fan a lot of my favorite is go slow but that's it for now from d.w.

news africa you can catch all our stories on our website and facebook page we leave you now with the speeches of the late afrobeat king fela kuti enjoy it we'll see you next time by phone now.

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