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CredibleVoteNG, a free citizen-built platform, has opened public access to detailed data on Nigeria’s polling units ahead of the 2027 general elections. The tool offers verified information on the country’s electoral structure with no registration or fees required.
The launch follows a controversy over the cost of obtaining such data from the Independent National Electoral Commission, positioning the platform as a civic-tech response built around transparency.
What CredibleVoteNG offers
The platform covers the full sweep of Nigeria’s voting map: 37 states including the Federal Capital Territory, 774 local government areas, 8,809 wards and 176,846 polling units. The data is accessible through nine open programming endpoints that require no API key or sign-up.
By making the information freely available, the founders aim to help observers, researchers, journalists and ordinary citizens scrutinise the electoral process. They argue that independent oversight depends on independent access to the underlying data.
The people behind the platform
CredibleVoteNG was built by two Nigerian technologists. Kelly Omobude handled the development, technical architecture and database, while Uzoanya Grant served as product owner, leading design and user experience.
Explaining their motivation, the founders said, “Independent observation requires independent data.” The line captures the project’s core idea: that meaningful election monitoring is only possible when the facts are open to all.
The INEC fee that sparked it
The platform emerged after a dispute over data pricing. In October 2025, INEC billed a law firm about N1.5 billion for certified copies of the national voters’ register and polling-unit list under a freedom-of-information request, a figure critics called excessive.
INEC defended the charge, with its voter-education directorate saying the fee reflected only the cost of printing and certifying more than six million pages at a set rate per page, in line with the Freedom of Information Act and the Electoral Act. Media Rights Agenda and several lawyers nonetheless described the charge as prohibitive.
Civic tech and the road to 2027
The platform is part of a broader wave of Nigerian civic-tech projects using open data and technology to strengthen democratic accountability. Developers have built tools for tracking results, mapping polling units and flagging irregularities in recent election cycles.
Such efforts complement the work of official observers and the electoral commission itself. By lowering the cost of access, they widen the circle of people able to scrutinise the process, from journalists to ordinary voters.
With campaigning for 2027 expected to intensify, open electoral data could play a growing role in public debate. The platform’s creators hope it becomes a trusted reference point, helping to anchor discussions in verifiable facts.
Why it matters
Access to electoral data sits at the heart of public trust in elections. When citizens can easily verify the structure of the vote, it becomes harder for disputes and misinformation to take hold, and easier for observers to hold the system to account.
With the 2027 polls approaching, tools like CredibleVoteNG show how technologists are stepping in to widen access. The platform’s focus is the polling-unit and register data tied to the FOI fee dispute, a separate issue from unrelated reports of an alleged data breach. Its impact will depend on how widely citizens and observers put the open data to use.
