THE CENTRE for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) has launched a digital monitoring platform designed to track data privacy violations, website disruptions and restrictions on social media platforms during elections.
The platform, known as ‘PAWSOM-Monitor’, is expected to monitor the digital activities and accessibility of political parties and candidates, with particular attention to possible violations of citizens’ data privacy and restrictions that could undermine equal access to digital platforms during election campaigns.
CITAD’s Executive Director, Engr. Y. Z. Ya’u, disclosed this on Friday at a media briefing in Kano, saying the platform would be piloted during the Osun State governorship election scheduled for August 15, 2026.
According to him, the pilot exercise is intended to provide practical evidence ahead of the 2027 general elections and strengthen efforts to promote a level playing field for political parties and candidates.
Ya’u said equal access to the media, public digital infrastructure and the internet had become increasingly important to the credibility of elections, particularly as political parties and candidates now rely heavily on websites and social media platforms to communicate with voters.
He said the growing use of artificial intelligence and digital technologies had also made personal data an increasingly valuable resource that required stronger protection.
“Because we are increasingly moving into an AI-dependent environment, personal data of individuals is a critical resource that must be protected,” Ya’u said.
He explained that organisations and institutions holding citizens’ personal information, including telephone numbers, email addresses and residential addresses, were expected to process such information in accordance with the Nigeria Data Protection Act.
Ya’u noted that information which citizens might ordinarily consider insignificant could have significant value during political campaigns.
He said the unsolicited text messages and emails frequently received by citizens could, in some circumstances, suggest that their personal information had been obtained, accessed or shared without proper consent.
According to him, data protection concerns had received limited attention during previous elections because Nigeria only recently established a comprehensive legal and institutional framework for the protection of personal data.
He said the new data protection regime had created mechanisms for regulating how organisations collect, store, process and share citizens’ personal information.
The CITAD executive director warned that political parties or candidates who obtained unauthorised access to data held by public or private institutions could gain an unfair advantage over their competitors.
“It’s not only a breach of the data protection law, but it’s also undoing the equal access level playing field for the political parties,” he said.
Ya’u said CITAD would therefore monitor whether government agencies and other institutions holding citizens’ information unlawfully release such data to political actors for campaign purposes.
Monitoring access to digital platforms
Another major area of concern, he said, was the restriction or disruption of political parties’ access to digital infrastructure, including websites and social media platforms.
Ya’u explained that political parties and candidates increasingly depended on digital platforms to distribute campaign messages and interact with voters. Any deliberate disruption of such platforms, he said, could limit a party’s ability to reach the electorate.
He noted that websites could be disrupted through deliberate blocking or by overwhelming them with excessive requests, while social media accounts could also be suspended, restricted or otherwise prevented from functioning normally.
“We will be also monitoring the websites of political parties and candidates as well as their own social media handles to see instances in which political parties either deny their own website, either is blocked or is somehow restricted from performing the way it would perform,” he said.
According to Ya’u, PAWSOM-Monitor has been developed with artificial intelligence agents capable of analysing political party websites and social media accounts and identifying potential disruptions or restrictions.
The platform will also provide a mechanism through which members of the public can report unsolicited political messages, particularly where recipients suspect that their personal information may have been obtained or used without their consent.
CITAD said the information gathered through the platform would enable the organisation to assess compliance with Nigeria’s data protection laws during elections and document evidence of possible violations.
“The whole essence of it is that at the end of the day, we should be able to say that in these elections that the data protection law has been observed and no breaches have occurred, or that the law has been breached and these are the evidence that we have captured,” Ya’u said.
Findings to inform electoral reforms
Ya’u, however, clarified that the identification of data privacy or digital rights violations would not automatically provide grounds for cancelling an election, as existing electoral laws do not prescribe such a consequence.
Instead, he said the findings would be used to contribute to broader discussions on strengthening Nigeria’s electoral framework, particularly provisions relating to data privacy, digital rights and the protection of political parties and candidates during campaigns.
He said the findings from the monitoring exercise would form part of CITAD’s recommendations for future reviews of the Electoral Act.
The organisation, he added, expected the exercise to generate evidence that could assist policymakers and relevant institutions in addressing emerging digital challenges in Nigeria’s electoral system.
Osun election to serve as pilot
Ya’u disclosed that the first phase of the initiative would focus on the Osun State governorship election.
He said CITAD would begin monitoring the websites and social media platforms of political parties participating in the election from Friday ahead of the August 15 poll.
“We are going to start with a pilot. There is going to be a governorship election in Osun State on the 15th of this month. And so, from today until next Friday, that’s one week, we will be monitoring the platforms of all the political parties that are contesting the Osun State governorship election,” he said.
He noted that although many individual candidates did not operate dedicated websites, the political parties contesting the election maintain websites that could be monitored for possible disruptions and other digital rights concerns.
During a demonstration at the briefing, CITAD officials showed how users could submit websites and social media handles to the platform for analysis.
The platform features a monitoring interface through which the websites of political parties can be tracked, while its artificial intelligence system is designed to identify and flag potential problems for further investigation.
Officials explained that websites functioning normally would be displayed as active, while those where the system detected possible disruptions could be flagged for additional assessment.
A preliminary analysis of the websites of nine political parties participating in the Osun governorship election was also presented during the briefing.
The assessment showed varying statuses among the websites, with some marked as clear and others flagged as requiring further action.
CITAD officials cautioned, however, that an initial flag did not necessarily establish that a disruption had been deliberately caused.
They explained that a website problem could also result from technical difficulties involving an administrator, hosting company or other service provider. Further analysis, they said, would be required to establish the nature and possible source of any disruption.
Focus on official social media accounts
Responding to concerns over the proliferation of fake social media accounts operated in the names of political candidates, Ya’u said CITAD would focus primarily on accounts officially recognised and used by the candidates and political parties themselves.
He recalled that an earlier CITAD study had identified a large number of Facebook pages bearing the names of prominent Nigerian politicians, many of which were not officially operated by the individuals concerned.
“Four years ago, we did the research. We found, for instance, Ganduje had 126 Facebook pages. El-Rufai had 150-something. Many of these are not official pages,” he said.
Ya’u said monitoring unofficial accounts could create additional challenges because such pages might be operated by supporters, political opponents or individuals seeking to damage a candidate’s reputation.
He warned that fake or unauthorised accounts could also be used to disseminate hate speech, unlawful content or other messages capable of exposing political candidates to legal or reputational risks.
For this reason, he said the monitoring exercise would concentrate largely on verified or otherwise officially recognised social media accounts belonging to candidates and political parties.
CITAD said the Osun pilot would provide an early assessment of the state of digital rights and data protection in Nigeria’s electoral environment.
The organisation said the evidence generated through the exercise would help inform recommendations aimed at improving transparency, fairness and credibility in future elections, particularly as digital platforms and personal data become increasingly central to political campaigns.
