Nigeria is among the countries with the worst record of electoral irregularities in Africa. All the elections organized in the country since its independence in 1960 have been dented by different forms of electoral fraud. The 2007 general elections in Nigeria were particularly discredited, making election observers to devote a special attention to the country during the succeeding general election in 2011. Nigeria’s 2011 elections witnessed an unprecedented mobilization by domestic election observer groups. Efforts to deter electoral fraud in the 2011 elections appear to have paid off as the elections were adjudged to be more credible than the three preceding elections. Yet, the role of domestic election observers in deterring electoral fraud during the 2011 election has not been examined. This study therefore examines the role of domestic election observers in Nigeria’s 2011 elections, in order to determine the ways in which domestic observers worked to prevent electoral fraud during the elections and the level of success achieved by the observers. The study contends that domestic observers improved the integrity of the 2011 elections by influencing the electorates, election officials, and party agents. It notes that the use of new technologies, including mobile phones and internet platforms, enabled domestic observer groups to share information with the electorate as well as report irregularities to and receive feedbacks from election officials. This helped improve the transparency of the electoral process, made election officials more accountable to the public, and emboldened the electorate to report irregularities. The paper concludes that efforts by domestic observer groups to prevent electoral fraud in Nigeria reached a new height during the 2011 elections principally because of the new technologies adopted by election observer groups. These technologies enhanced the communication between observers, electorates and election officials, and improved the transparency of the electoral process.
