For many of the 73 million registered voters in Nigeria, the decision they were faced with on election day was not just who to vote for, but how to cast their ballot safely.

This year’s election, only the 3rd national election held in Nigeria since military rule ended in 1999 was fraught with difficulties and confusion, including two postponements of the election after what officials call “logistical problems.” Previous votes- in 2003 and 2007 – were marred by allegations of widespread ballot stuffing, voter intimidation, and violence.

Amidst this backdrop, Nigerian voters turned to social media and mobile apps to help them make their voices heard.

Mobile phone applications and SMS were utilized to monitor and evaluate official election results and processes. Looping this information back to Nigerian citizens empowered their action and created an effective and transparent means for free and fair electoral processes.

One application called ReVoDa, is part of the EnoughisEnough (EIE) Nigeria’s RSVP campaign, and connected voters to monitor and evaluate the entire election processes. This is a medium where citizens could report incidents such as ballot box thefts, violence, the late arrival of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) officials, police behaviors, and ultimately, the election results. INEC officials are responsible for running the elections, thus they represented the voice of the people to the authorities.

With ReVoDa, EiE Nigeria had the potential to turns the 87,297,789 Nigerians with mobile phones, 43,982,200 with Internet access and 2,985,680 on Facebook into informal election reporters.

ReVoDa allowed voters to report as independent citizen their observations from their respective

polling units across Nigeria, having registered to map their mobile number, name and polling unit number to specific locations. This allowed EiE Nigeria to send relevant information about the electoral process to registered users; and users can view and share reports of electoral processes with one another.

Subsequent to their connectivity, users could choose from the ReVoDa Mobile App or connect via regular SMS, the latter seems to a more popular alternative. Users would create a profile, enter their Polling Unit Code and Name and are then registered on the EiE Nigeria network.

A week prior to the polls opening, ReVoDa, was downloaded by over 7,700 people. Building on the reports received on April 9 for the National Assembly elections, they saw 466 new incident reports from ReVoDa users across 35 of 37 states – compared with 27 states the week before.

 

A similar program called ReclaimNaija has corresponding aims, but provides deliverable reports directly to the

corresponding electoral bodies.

ReclaimNaija uses FrontlineSMS to receive and send text messages reports, and Ushahidi to visually map the election reports. Alike to ReVoDa, ReclaimNaija makes it possible for citizens to monitor the electoral process and report incidents of electoral fraud.

Unlike ReVoDa though, ReclaimNaija has a direct line of communication with electoral officials. Instead of having a database that merely aggregates information and contains reports, they send the reports directly to INEC. By providing evidence of detrimental electoral processes, it can be combated and corrected.

Femi Taiwo, a member of INITS Limited, a Nigerian company that helped set up the technical side of ReclaimNaija’s monitoring system, says:

On election days, citizens have been frustrated by a number of things; missing names, seeing ballot boxes stuffed or even stolen and other electoral fraud and yet being unable to do anything about this. This time however, is the time to speak out”

ReclaimNaija uses FrontlinSMS or calling dedicated numbers in four major languages (Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba and Pidgin) as the gateway platforms to placing reports to promote electoral transparency.

Another difference between these two programs is that ReclaimNaija achieved a large amount of participation through voter education forums for community leaders, spread across Nigeria’s 36 states, and the capital Abuja. By engaging community based social networks, they ensured the information got across to large segments of society and has been crucial to RecalimNaija’s monitoring and evaluation.

During the January 2011 Voters Registration Exercise, ReclaimNaija received 15,000 reports from the public over two weeks, highlighting the importance to have a election monitoring service to offset problems and expose fraud.

The election registration process proved this; on receiving messages about problems such as lack of registration cards, ReclaimNaija was often able to communicate with the INEC, thus helping improve the efficiency of the registration process.

One message received through ReclaimNaija during the first attempt at the National Assembly election said:

more than half of registered voters here [in my voting station] couldn’t find their names… Is this an attempt to reduce the number of voters in Lagos?

These type of citizen based reports and monitoring systems have become a valuable source of information for the INEC to create an environment for fair and balanced elections. ReclaimNaija collate reports and send directly on to the INEC in real time.

“If the INEC hadn’t seen these reports they would not have known about the level of problems being experienced by Nigerians; there would not have been this kind of proof” says Linda Kamau, an Ushahidi developer was in Nigeria to see the launch of ReclaimNaija system.

Kayode R. Idowu, Chief Press Secretary for the INEC Chairman, responded positively to ReclaimNaija and citizens actively reporting incidents to the Commission, “…through SMS and voice calls on phones, or by emailing. Such reports should reflect useful details such as location, time and action involved in the incident, to enable the Commission respond appropriately”.

Clearly, there is a great power in leveraging the use of ICTs to ensure that Nigerian voices were heard in this past election and streamline the efficiency and safety of the electoral process.