CSO launches electoral intelligence tech, pre-election security assessment insight

A civil society organisation (CSO), Connected Development (CODE), has launched two electoral monitoring tools under its Uzabe platform as well as a pre-election security assessment report.

Also, the group urged Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) not to postpone the general elections for any reason.

Using the Uzabe platform, CODE participated in election observation in Nigeria’s 2015 and 2019 polls, deploying over 10,000 observers in both.

For this year’s elections, leveraging the platform, CODE will deploy 20,000 community-based observers to provide real-time situation reports from polling units using two of its channels to provide structured and unstructured data.

Speaking on usefulness of the initiative, Chief Executive of CODE, Mr. Hamzat Lawal, said: “Connected Development is not interested in the result of the elections but interested in the processes of the elections, to ensure that INEC’s guidelines are adequately met.”

He announced that although “7,000 observers will get accreditation tags from INEC, the remaining 13,000 would observe and report the elections from various polling stations.”

On measures the organisation is taking to uphold integrity of the polls, Lawal said CODE is partnering with Meta to flag down fake social media news on the day of election.

The organisation will also collaborate with security agencies and stakeholders who would use the platform for insights to improve security.