Questions put to YEGO, answered
Questions on YEGO's mandate, how guards are registered and verified, how incidents are reported and verified, what happens to personal data, and how organisations can partner.
About YEGO
What the institution is, who is behind it, and what it is not.
What is YEGO?
YEGO stands for Youth Electoral Guards Observers. YEGO is a national youth-led citizens observation, vigilance and early-warning initiative established to strengthen electoral integrity, peaceful participation, credible elections and democratic accountability across Nigeria.
Its mission is to build Nigeria's largest youth-led citizens observation, vigilance and early-warning mechanism against electoral violence, promoting peaceful participation and credible elections. The programme is being built for the 2027 General Elections cycle.
The scale it is designed for is 300,000 Electoral Guards and 50,000 Master Trainers across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory. These are targets, not achievements.
Who runs YEGO?
A flagship initiative of Nigeria Youth Policy Development Advocacy (NYPD-Advocacy).
Within that structure, YEGO is governed at three levels:
- National Stakeholders Steering Committee (NSSC): Strategic stakeholder body.
- YEGO National Structure: Professional implementation and operational management team.
- Six Zonal Structure: Regional execution and coordination.
The offices defined for the NSSC are the Chairperson, Co-Chairperson, Vice Chairperson, Committee Secretary and Steering Committee Members. Naming the Committee's membership remains an open item.
Is YEGO a security agency or a political party?
No. It is neither, and the distinction is worth stating plainly.
- Not a security agency. Guards observe and report. They do not police, arrest or enforce.
- Not a political party. YEGO does not support or campaign for any political party or candidate.
- Not a campaign organization. No candidate, no platform, no endorsement, at any level.
- Not a parallel electoral authority. YEGO does not conduct elections or replace the mandate of INEC.
A YEGO volunteer observes, documents, verifies and reports. They do not police, arrest, detain or enforce, and they carry no authority beyond their own citizenship.
Does YEGO replace INEC?
No. YEGO does not conduct elections, does not administer any part of the process, and does not claim the mandate of the Independent National Electoral Commission or of any other public authority.
146,913 domestic and international observers were accredited by INEC for the 2023 General Election. Yet challenges including electoral violence, voter intimidation, obstruction and concerns around electoral offences and accountability remained. Nigeria's electoral process cannot depend only on formally accredited election observers to protect the integrity of elections.
What is YEGO's registration or accreditation standing?
This is an open item. The brief does not state YEGO's or NYPD-Advocacy's registration status or observer accreditation standing. Partners, donors and regulators are entitled to ask for the documents themselves.
Participation
Becoming an Electoral Guard, and what registration does and does not mean.
How do I become an Electoral Guard?
Applications are made through this portal. The route from applicant to deployed observer has six stages, and no stage can be skipped: register, get verified, get trained, get certified, get deployed, observe and report.
Begin at Become a Guard. Once you have applied, follow your application at Track an application. Eligibility rules (age, residency) will be published when applications open.
Is registering the same as being verified?
No, and the distinction is deliberate. Registration records what you have submitted. Verification is a separate decision, taken by an authorised officer, that your identity and location details are as submitted and that you are cleared to begin training.
A waitlisted application means the applicant was verified and is awaiting the next cohort intake, not that they were refused.
Does it cost anything to take part?
No fee schedule has been published, and nothing in YEGO's material states that a fee must be paid to register, train or serve. If anyone presenting themselves as acting for YEGO asks you for a payment, raise it with the secretariat through Contact before paying anything.
Verification & reporting
How information enters the system, and what must happen before it can be called verified.
How do I report an incident?
Incident reports are submitted through ERART, the digital reporting and incident-management tool. Members of the public use the public report page; certified guards report from their own portal. An officer can also record a report on behalf of a reporter who cannot use the platform.
Record only what you can see from where you may lawfully stand, separate what you saw from what others told you, and never put yourself or anyone else at risk to obtain evidence.
Is a report published as soon as it is submitted?
No. Every item sits at one of three levels — Reported, Under review, Verified — and the level is always visible. A single uncorroborated account does not meet the standard, and where an officer cannot corroborate a report the honest outcome, “unable to determine”, is used.
What are ERARM, ERART and the Governance Monitoring Platform?
- ERARM: YEGO Early Warning & Rapid Response Mechanisms. ERARM will leverage the targeted network of 300,000 Electoral Guards across Nigeria. Once onboarded and trained, YEGO Electoral Guards will serve as the human observation and reporting network of ERARM, identifying, monitoring, verifying and reporting emerging electoral risks, threats, voter intimidation, disruptions and other incidents that may affect peaceful participation and the integrity of the electoral process. It also facilitates information-sharing with relevant authorities and institutional partners to support appropriate preventive and responsive action.
- ERART: YEGO Early Warning & Rapid Response Tool. ERART will serve as the digital reporting and incident-management platform powering the mechanism, enabling Electoral Guards and coordinators to submit, document, verify and track relevant reports.
- GMP: Governance Monitoring Platform. After elections, YEGO volunteers are transformed into democratic accountability fellows through the Governance Monitoring Platform.
Can YEGO arrest anyone, or compel an authority to act?
No. YEGO is not an enforcement body. Its role is to move credible information quickly and accurately to those with the mandate to act on it, and to record that it did so.
Data & privacy
What happens to the information submitted to YEGO.
Who can see the information I submit?
Access is granted by role and limited to geography, following the command chain: National Stakeholders Steering Committee → YEGO National Structure → Six Zonal Structure → State Coordinators → LGA/Community Coordinators → Electoral Guards/Observers. Each level sees what its responsibility requires and no more, and every access to sensitive records is logged. See Privacy and data protection.
What does this website collect?
Only what you type into a form (for example the contact form or an application) and the minimum technical data needed to keep the service secure. There is no advertising technology. Signed-in staff use a session cookie. Human verification on public forms is provided by Cloudflare Turnstile, and online donations are processed by PayPal under their own privacy terms.
Partnership
Working with YEGO as an institution, a funder or a peer organisation.
How can an organisation partner with YEGO?
YEGO seeks partners across these priority areas:
- National Coverage. Supporting the activation of YEGO's national, zonal, state and grassroots structures.
- Capacity & Advocacy Program. Training and certifying Electoral Guards and partnership in programs and advocacy activities.
- Research & Evidence. Generating credible data and analysis to support electoral integrity and democratic accountability.
- Early Warning & Peace. Strengthening mechanisms for identifying and addressing emerging electoral risks.
- Post-Election Accountability. Documenting lessons, patterns and governance issues emerging from the electoral process.
Can an organisation obtain YEGO documents or data?
Public material is listed at Public resources. Handbooks awaiting approval cannot be released until approved. Personal data held by the platform is not available to partners.