THE CENTRE for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) has raised fresh concerns over the digital accessibility of some political parties contesting Saturday’s Osun State governorship election, saying four party websites were operating with anomalies in the latest 24-hour monitoring cycle.
The development came in CITAD’s second monitoring report on digital access, political parties’ websites, and possible data and privacy breaches ahead of the August 15 election.
According to the fresh report, released Friday evening, CITAD’s artificial intelligence-based PAWSON-Monitor conducted 17,888 checks on the websites of 15 political parties participating in the election within the latest monitoring period.
CITAD said 11 of the parties had websites that remained operational throughout the period, with no anomalies requiring urgent intervention or providing evidence of a deliberate attempt to undermine their digital presence.
However, the organisation identified the websites of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Allied Peoples Movement (APM), Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), and Action Peoples Party (APP) as operating with anomalies.
The latest findings represent a shift from CITAD’s initial preliminary assessment reported by National Record earlier on Friday, which identified a different group of websites requiring attention.
Fresh Concerns Emerge on Eve Of Poll
The latest report places particular emphasis on the websites of APM and PRP, which CITAD said continued to require attention.
The Young Progressives Party (YPP) also recorded a relatively low success rate of 57.3 per cent during the latest monitoring period, although CITAD did not place it among the four parties specifically identified as having websites operating with anomalies.
CITAD said the latest data indicated that the affected parties needed to take immediate steps to investigate and correct the technical problems affecting their websites, particularly given the importance of digital platforms in communicating with voters during the final hours of an election campaign.
“Action is required from the parties to rectify the anomalies to be able to operate optimally and take advantage of the digital presence, especially at a crucial moment like this,” the organisation said.
CITAD also noted that PDP and APP, which had not previously been among the parties flagged in the same category, had now joined the list of websites requiring attention.
CITAD therefore urged all affected political parties to immediately investigate their website infrastructure and resolve any technical problems that could limit voters’ access to their campaign information and other election-related communications.
Findings Follow Earlier Warning Over Digital Access
The latest report builds on an earlier preliminary assessment published by CITAD after its monitoring activities between August 8 and 12.
In the earlier preliminary assessment reported by National Record, CITAD said its PAWSON-Monitor had conducted tens of thousands of checks on the digital platforms of the 15 participating political parties to assess website accessibility, digital rights and possible data and privacy breaches.
The earlier report said the platform conducted 31,763 checks on August 8 and 9, recording 25,287 successful checks and 6,476 unsuccessful checks for technical reasons. The overall digital-risk assessment for that period was rated 41 out of 100, which CITAD classified as moderate. A further 21,644 checks were conducted and analysed on August 12.
At that stage, CITAD had reported that most party websites remained accessible but that several had technical anomalies.
The earlier assessment particularly drew attention to the website of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), which recorded no successful checks from the monitoring server during three verification attempts and returned an “ISP_block_detected” error. CITAD, however, cautioned that the finding did not by itself establish that the website had been deliberately blocked or censored.
The organisation also identified technical concerns involving the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) and Action Democratic Party (ADP) websites, while the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and National Democratic Congress (NDC) were subsequently identified as having websites operating with anomalies in the earlier monitoring exercise.
CITAD stressed that the observed problems could have resulted from a range of technical factors, including internet service provider restrictions, hosting difficulties, domain or DNS configuration problems, or other infrastructure-related issues.
It consequently warned against interpreting website inaccessibility or technical irregularities as evidence of deliberate political interference without additional verification.
No Evidence Yet Of Deliberate Disruption
In its latest update, CITAD maintained the same cautious position, stressing that the identification of anomalies does not automatically amount to evidence of censorship, deliberate blocking or other external interference.
The organisation said it would continue to subject emerging anomalies to human and cross-network verification before drawing conclusions about their causes.
This distinction is significant because political parties’ websites can experience intermittent failures for reasons unrelated to political interference, including server outages, hosting problems, DNS errors, expired configurations, ISP-related issues and other technical failures.
CITAD’s monitoring initiative is therefore designed not only to identify disruptions but also to establish, through further verification, whether such disruptions represent genuine digital-rights violations.
Digital Rights Monitoring Expanded Beyond Polling Units
The PAWSON-Monitor project is part of CITAD’s effort to extend election observation into Nigeria’s increasingly important digital political environment.
The organisation launched the AI-based monitoring platform last week to monitor possible digital-rights violations, data and privacy breaches and restrictions affecting political actors and their digital platforms ahead of the Osun election.
Its monitoring covers the digital presence of political parties and candidates, including the accessibility of their websites and social media platforms, as well as potential misuse of citizens’ personal data for political campaigning.
CITAD said the broader objective is to assess whether competing parties and candidates have equal opportunities to communicate with voters and participate in the electoral process through digital platforms.
The initiative is being implemented as a pilot ahead of the Osun election, with CITAD planning to deploy the experience and methodology to the 2027 general elections.
Parties urged to act before voting
With voters scheduled to go to the polls on Saturday, CITAD said political parties whose websites are experiencing problems should not wait until after the election to address them.
The organisation urged the affected parties to examine their website configurations and engage their technical teams, hosting providers, domain registrars and internet service providers where necessary.
It also called for continued independent verification of suspected disruptions to distinguish ordinary technical failures from potential digital-rights violations.
CITAD said it would continue monitoring the digital environment and documenting emerging anomalies as the election approaches.
The latest findings underline a growing dimension of election administration in Nigeria: access to digital platforms can influence how political parties communicate their messages, reach voters and participate in the public information environment.
As Osun voters prepare to elect their next governor on Saturday, CITAD’s monitoring suggests that the integrity of the electoral environment extends beyond physical polling locations to the accessibility, reliability and fairness of the digital spaces in which political campaigns increasingly take place.
The organisation said its continued monitoring would help establish whether the technical problems observed on some party websites are temporary infrastructure issues or develop into more serious disruptions requiring further intervention.
