Google Launches Portal For Nigeria’s General Elections

Few days after embarking on a training workshop for professional journalist in Nigeria, Google launched a portal for the February 2015 elections.

The online platform, www.google.ng/elections, will feature players in the political and electoral system via news and audiovisual materials. The platform also has another feature called “pledge to serve” which seeks to encourage eligible voters to publicly commit themselves to voting at the general elections.

The page shows compilation using mostly Google tools such as YouTube and Google News alert. The page begins with a pledge button which directs one to a Pledge to Vote page where one pledges to participate in the elections and then nominates two friends to do the same.

The next section is a feed of the latest YouTube and Google+ videos about the elections powered by Storyful, a service that curates news from trawling social media and the larger internet. Next comes a calendar titled Event Agenda to keep track of all upcoming events and hangouts. These events which are the election dates can be added to a user’s Google Calendar in one click.



This is the first time that a Google platform centered around election has been launched in Nigeria. However, the first Google election hub has been in existence since 2007 and over 40 edition have been launched till date. In Africa, Google election hubs have been previously launched in South Africa, Ghana and Kenya.