Two Nigerian tech experts have launched an online platform, Collate, to collate and broadcast, in real-time, results of the governorship elections across Nigeria.
O. Nwoye and Ozo Omosigho say the platform will use crowdsourced data from Nigerians across the over 176,000 polling units in the country. The results will then be readily available to viewers across the world.
“To achieve this, at least one electorate from all 176,846 polling units across the federation is required to pre-register on the platform before Saturday and upload election results at their polling unit in real-time,” they said in a statement.
Failure of the electoral commission, INEC, to upload in real-time, polling unit results of the presidential election has been mentioned by local and international observers as one of the flaws of the election.
Owners of Collate hope to use the platform to address some of the concerns of Nigerians about INEC’s election portal, iREV.
“While party agents contested election results during INEC result announcements, nobody really had real-time evidence to present. There was nowhere visible that the results were all aggregated. So it became difficult to prove,” Nwoye said.
Read the full statement below:
Tech executives Oo Nwoye and Ozo Omosigho are pleased to announce the launch of Collate, an open and crowdsourced online result collation and viewing platform (ReV) built to aid transparency in the coming gubernatorial elections in Nigeria.
In the wake of the controversies that marked the results of Nigeria’s last presidential election, Collate aims to have robust, documented and centralized data of all polling unit results in all states in real-time. To achieve this, at least one electorate from all 176,846 polling units across the federation is required to pre-register on the platform before Saturday and upload election results at their polling unit in real-time. This will serve as a source of reference for evidence against result tampering.
Commenting on the launch, Nwoye states: “While party agents contested election results during INEC result announcements, nobody really had real-time evidence to present. There was nowhere visible that the results were all aggregated. So it became difficult to prove.
He adds: “Though a lot of people have introduced structured solutions like forms to crowdsource results, these solutions are not entirely designed to capture all the polling units and offer real-time results as they are dependent on voters sporadically finding out about those forms on election day which may be too late.
So, from my product knowledge, I thought it would be good to know in advance, polling units without coverage and plan for coverage. With voters pre-registering and indicating their polling units, we can identify the PUs that risk not having results posted on Collate and push to get voters from those PUs to register on the site before the gubernatorial election. What’s key in this product is the ability to plan ahead.”
Nwoye, Omosigho and the team have been working hard to develop the platform, which they anticipate will be a necessary game-changer for the coming elections. They are dedicated to maintaining a nonpartisan approach and prioritize the elimination of corruption and fraud in the electoral process.
“The difference with what we’re doing is that we allow voters to independently collect results and have proof,” Omosigho says. “When you can point to proof, then you can stop any malpractice in the voter process. Now any candidate from any political party will have access to clear evidence of images taken at the polling units, completely independent of INEC.”
To safeguard the integrity of the election, Collate ensures that voters who submit results to their platform will be protected, and no personally identifiable information will be disclosed to the public.
PT
