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, stated it plans to deploy greater than 4,000 election observers by way of the networks of its member organisations for the 2027 polls.
The initiative will combine data gathered by election observers, knowledge from official outcomes revealed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), analysis findings, and media reviews 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, stated the initiative was designed to handle the fragmentation of election commentary 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 sources in election commentary, voter schooling, incident monitoring, analysis and knowledge evaluation through the years, a lot of the knowledge generated remained inside separate institutional networks and knowledge methods.
According to him, this association has restricted the power of organisations to combination and examine proof, confirm reviews throughout totally different sources and maximise the worth of their investments in election monitoring.
The consortium stated 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 items and different places, establish discrepancies that require additional investigation, and talk findings supported by verifiable proof.
A significant part of NEDO is the deployment of expertise to gather, course of and analyse outcomes revealed by INEC.
The consortium stated it might incorporate automated knowledge assortment methods able to retrieving data out there from the electoral fee, alongside synthetic intelligence optical character recognition (OCR) expertise.
The OCR expertise converts photos of election end result sheets obtained from IReV into machine-readable knowledge that may be organised, analysed and shared with collaborating organisations.
The consortium stated the system would assist interactive election end result 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 could be made out there to different companions by way of utility 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 capability to conduct credible elections.
The consortium stated the discovering highlighted the significance of impartial election commentary 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 could affect public notion.
It stated NEDO would convey collectively impartial commentary networks, analysis establishments, knowledge platforms and media organisations to enhance the gathering and verification of electoral proof.
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