Map by Tim Hormigos with writing contributions from Adrian Elimian
With party primaries for Nigeria’s 2027 general elections now officially underway and the election less than a year away, there has never been a better moment to take stock of what the 2023 contest actually looked like on the ground. That’s exactly what this remarkable interactive map by guest author Tim Hormigos sets out to do — and it does so at a level of granularity that is very rare for mapping of a Nigerian election. Drawing on the IReV data that was successfully uploaded online and Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism’s collation work, here is an extraordinary detailed view of how Nigeria voted in February 2023: ward by ward and unit by unit, across Africa’s most populous nation.
The 2023 election was one of the most consequential votes in Nigerian history. Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (centre) was declared the winner and has served in office since May 2023, but the underlying data was messy from the start. INEC’s portal, designed to upload polling unit results in real time, was marred by controversies that tainted the transmission process and fueled accusations of manipulation, though the true extent of any interference remains deeply difficult to quantify.
The gaps in the underlying data mean this map cannot be a complete picture. But what it can do is show the geographic support for Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, and Rabiu Kwankwaso at a level that Nigerian election data has rarely, if ever, reached in the public domain.
With the map, you can view the how Lagosians voted neighborhood by neighborhood, observe the regional divides in Edo State, follow how Kano differed from other Northern cities, and even examine the Northern Christian vote from urban Sabon Garuruwa to rural southwestern Bauchi State.
For researchers, journalists, and anyone trying to understand how Nigeria actually votes beyond the state-level totals, this is an invaluable resource.