A consortium of 5 civil society organisations has launched the Nigeria Election Data Observatory (NEDO), a joint election monitoring and data-sharing initiative designed to strengthen impartial verification of election outcomes, observe electoral incidents and enhance public entry to credible data forward of the 2027 normal elections.
The consortium, comprising Dataphyte Foundation, YIAGA Africa, BudgIT Foundation, the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID), and Dean Initiative, mentioned it plans to deploy greater than 4,000 election observers by the networks of its member organisations for the 2027 polls.
The initiative will combine data gathered by election observers, knowledge from official outcomes printed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), analysis findings, and media stories into a standard technological platform for evaluation, verification, and public communication.
Oluseyi Olufemi of Dataphyte Foundation, who learn the consortium’s assertion on the launch, mentioned the initiative was designed to handle the fragmentation of election statement actions amongst civil society organisations and set up a coordinated system for analyzing electoral data.
He defined that though civil society teams had invested appreciable assets in election statement, voter training, incident monitoring, analysis and knowledge evaluation through the years, a lot of the data generated remained inside separate institutional networks and knowledge programs.
According to him, this association has restricted the power of organisations to mixture and examine proof, confirm stories throughout completely different sources and maximise the worth of their investments in election monitoring.
The consortium mentioned the expertise of the 2023 normal elections, significantly the controversies surrounding INEC’s Result Viewing Portal (IReV) and the transmission and public show of election outcomes, bolstered the necessity for a coordinated, impartial civic data system.
It argued that an built-in platform would allow civil society organisations to match official election information with impartial observations from polling models and different places, determine discrepancies that require additional investigation, and talk findings supported by verifiable proof.
A serious element of NEDO is the deployment of know-how to gather, course of and analyse outcomes printed by INEC.
The consortium mentioned it will incorporate automated knowledge assortment programs able to retrieving data out there from the electoral fee, alongside synthetic intelligence optical character recognition (OCR) know-how.
The OCR know-how converts photos of election outcome sheets obtained from IReV into machine-readable knowledge that may be organised, analysed and shared with collaborating organisations.
The consortium mentioned the system would help interactive election outcome platforms developed by its companions, together with Dataphyte Foundation and BudgIT Foundation, whereas making electoral data extra accessible for public scrutiny.
Through the association, data collected by one collaborating organisation can be made out there to different companions by software programming interfaces (APIs) and different data-sharing mechanisms.
The coalition cited public confidence within the electoral course of as another excuse to ascertain the observatory.
It cited YIAGA Africa’s September 2026 National Voting Intention Survey, which reportedly discovered that solely 34 per cent of respondents expressed confidence in INEC’s capacity to conduct credible elections.
The consortium mentioned the discovering highlighted the significance of impartial election statement and entry to credible data all through the electoral cycle.
It additionally warned that the rising use of generative synthetic intelligence, deepfakes, manipulated content material, and misinformation had created extra challenges for the integrity of electoral data.
According to the coalition, residents more and more want dependable technique of distinguishing genuine election data from false or deceptive claims, significantly in periods when political tensions and competing accounts of electoral occasions might affect public notion.
It mentioned NEDO would deliver collectively impartial statement networks, analysis establishments, knowledge platforms and media organisations to enhance the gathering and verification of electoral proof.
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