Sources and methodology
naija-data only publishes data it can trace to a source. Every record carries a sources list with ids from
the table below, and any value that rests on a single or secondary source is listed in unverified_fields.
How the data is built
Section titled “How the data is built”- Download the upstream files (official PDFs, the regulators’ own lists and APIs) and record a SHA-256 for each.
- Extract and clean them with scripts kept in the repository (
scripts/), so anyone can rebuild the data. - Cross-check every source against the others: counts, codes and names. Disagreements are resolved with a written rule or left out, never guessed. Each one is listed on the coverage page.
- Validate in CI on every change: JSON Schemas, unique codes, parent/child links, official totals (37 states and FCT, 774 LGAs, 8,809 wards), overlapping number ranges, garbled text.
- Generate the Python, JavaScript and Go packages and the API from the same files, and check with 6,000+ shared test cases that all of them give identical answers.
Sources (24)
Section titled “Sources (24)”Licence values: facts-only means the source publishes no open licence, so naija-data uses only plain facts
(names, codes, numbers) and copies no text; public-law means legislation or gazetted regulations;
not-redistributable means only the published format is described.
| Source | Publisher | Licence | Retrieved | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| INEC Continuous Voter Registration portal: polling unit locator (state, LGA and registration area lists) | Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) | facts-only | 2026-10-09 | Current official codes and names for 37 states, 774 LGAs and registration areas. The live list holds 8,810 registration areas because one ward (Gwer East, Benue, code 09 Mbaikyaan) appears twice; without the duplicate the total is 8,809, matching INEC’s published figure. |
| INEC polling units statistics | Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) | facts-only | 2026-10-09 | Publishes the totals 176,846 polling units, 8,809 registration areas and 774 LGAs. |
| INEC Result Viewing portal (IReV): senatorial districts, federal and state constituencies, and the wards in each | Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) | facts-only | 2026-10-16 | Election lists for the Senate, House of Representatives and House of Assembly elections give each unit’s INEC code and name (2023 general elections). The ward lists of the 2023 presidential election link every one of the 8,809 wards to its senatorial district, federal constituency and state constituency. IReV holds 990 state constituencies for the 36 states (the FCT has no House of Assembly); the often-quoted figure of 993 is not in INEC’s own list. Three duplicated state constituency codes, a few misspelled names and 14 suspected ward mislinks are listed in docs/data/coverage-and-gaps.md. |
| INEC Directory of Polling Units, revised January 2015 (one PDF per state) | Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) | facts-only | 2026-10-09 | Removed from inecnigeria.org; the official files were retrieved from the Internet Archive (35 of 37 states; Abia and Delta were not archived). Used to cross-check ward codes and names and to repair typing errors in the live list. |
| Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, First Schedule (Parts I and II) | Federal Republic of Nigeria (copy hosted by the National Human Rights Commission) | public-law | 2026-10-09 | State capitals, FCT area council headquarters, the legal total of 768 LGAs plus 6 area councils, and historical spellings. This copy is a retyped transcription with typing errors, so it is not used as the master list of LGA names. |
| Nigeria - Subnational Administrative Boundaries (COD-AB) | OCHA, from the Office of the Surveyor General of the Federation (OSGOF), eHealth Africa and the UN Cartographic Section | CC-BY-IGO-3.0 | 2026-10-09 | Dataset last modified 2026-04-16. P-codes, centroid coordinates, senatorial districts and LGA headquarters (admin capitals). Known errors found: Anambra capital spelled ‘Akwa’, ‘Obia/Akpor’ for Obio/Akpor, ‘Markafi’ for Makarfi; LGA headquarters are single-source and marked unverified. |
| geoBoundaries gbOpen NGA ADM1 and ADM2 | William & Mary geoLab, from GRID3 (2022) | CC-BY-4.0 | 2026-10-09 | ADM1 has 37 units and ADM2 has 774. Reserved for the optional boundaries package. |
| Unicode CLDR subdivision names (release 47) | Unicode Consortium | Unicode-3.0 | 2026-10-09 | ISO 3166-2:NG subdivision codes (NG-AB … NG-ZA). |
| Country Guidance: Nigeria (2021), General remarks | European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA) | facts-only | 2026-10-09 | Lists the six geopolitical zones and their states, with the FCT in North-Central. No Nigerian government page listing the zones was found. |
| Full list: 36 Nigerian states, their dates of creation and how they were created | BusinessDay Nigeria | facts-only | 2026-10-09 | Single secondary source, so creation dates are marked unverified. It dates Anambra to 1991 (when old Anambra was split) but Imo to 1976, so ‘creation date’ is ambiguous for states that were later split or renamed. |
| CBN lists of financial institutions (via the cbn.gov.ng/api endpoints behind the supervision pages) | Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) | facts-only | 2026-10-09 | Commercial (28), merchant (5), non-interest (6), payment service banks (5), mobile money operators (16), microfinance (796), primary mortgage (33) and development finance institutions (8). Names, types and licensed status only. |
| Revised Standards on Nigeria Uniform Bank Account Number (NUBAN) for Banks and Other Financial Institutions | Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Payments System Management Department | facts-only | 2026-10-09 | The document is dated 2019 although published under /2020/. Check-digit weights 3,7,3,3,7,3,…; bank codes padded to 6 digits with zeros, OFI codes prefixed with 9. Worked examples: 0000014579 (bank 011) and 0000214579 (OFI 50547). |
| Paystack public bank list (GET /bank?country=nigeria) | Paystack | facts-only | 2026-10-09 | 288 entries. Its ‘code’ field mixes CBN codes, NIP codes and provider-specific codes (e.g. ‘MFB50094’, ‘035A’); only codes whose shape fits the institution type are used. |
| Monnify public bank list | Monnify (TeamApt) | facts-only | 2026-10-09 | 31 entries with CBN code, NIP code and USSD code. Still lists Diamond and Heritage banks, so it is never used for status. |
| CBN press release: revocation of the banking licence of Heritage Bank Plc | Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) | facts-only | 2026-10-09 | Dated 3 June 2024. |
| Access Bank launches new brand following its merger with Diamond Bank | Nairametrics | facts-only | 2026-10-09 | Merged bank launched on 1 April 2019. |
| Merger: Access, Diamond Banks get final approval from CBN | TheCable | facts-only | 2026-10-09 | |
| NCC Mobile Number Allocation Table | Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) | facts-only | 2026-10-09 | Allocations as at December 2023; page updated 2024-11-25. Mobile number portability means a prefix shows the original network, not always the current one. |
| NIPOST National Digital Alphanumeric Postcode System | Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) | not-redistributable | 2026-10-09 | Launched 2026-10-01. 11-character codes such as FC02A09DB09 (State, LGA, District, Area, Building). Lookups go through a gated API, so only the format is described here. |
| NCC Area Codes by Zone and Primary Centre | Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) | facts-only | 2026-10-15 | 56 geographic area codes. Lists Benin as 053 and Warri as 052, the opposite of the NCC Numbering Plan; the centre names for these two codes are marked unverified. |
| National Numbering Plan (October 2022) | Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) | facts-only | 2026-10-15 | 308 number block allocations (fixed, mobile, 0700/0800). Two Vezeti Services rows (306, 308) give ranges that do not match their access codes and are excluded; row 255 states 3,000,000 lines for a 1,000,000-number range. |
| Numbering Regulations 2008 | Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Official Gazette No. 68, Vol. 95, 17 November 2008 | public-law | 2026-10-15 | The trunk prefix 0 is not part of the national number; example Lagos number 12691531 (8 digits). |
| Determination of Mobile (Voice) Termination Rate for Special Numbering Services Segment | Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) | facts-only | 2026-10-15 | Dated 24 September 2022. Describes the 0800 range as the toll-free service and sets a separate Non Toll-Free tariff for the 0700 range. |
| National Road Traffic Regulations, 2012 (S.I. No. 61) | Federal Republic of Nigeria, Official Gazette No. 101, Vol. 99, 25 December 2012 (copy hosted by SabiLaw) | public-law | 2026-10-15 | Regulations 36-39 and Schedule 5: plate structure, colours by category, LGA code first on private, commercial and local government plates (39(4)(f)), dealer plates ‘D’ + state code + digits (figure 10). FRSC determines the codes (39(5)) and does not publish an LGA code list. The sample plate images are missing from this copy. |
Licences and credit
Section titled “Licences and credit”Two licences
Section titled “Two licences”| What | Licence | File |
|---|---|---|
| Source code (packages, scripts, API, docs site) | MIT | LICENSE |
The compiled dataset (everything in data/ and the data files generated from it) |
CC BY 4.0 | LICENSE-DATA |
Copyright (c) 2026 Akanji Oluwaseun Gabriel.
How to credit the dataset
Section titled “How to credit the dataset”Nigerian reference data from naija-data by Akanji Oluwaseun Gabriel (https://github.com/asgatcreation/naija-data), licensed CC BY 4.0, compiled from INEC, OCHA/OSGOF, CBN, NCC and other official sources.
Upstream sources
Section titled “Upstream sources”The machine-readable list, including the date each source was retrieved, is
data/sources.json. Every data row says which sources it came from.
| Source | Publisher | Licence / terms | Used for |
|---|---|---|---|
| CVR polling unit locator (live lists) | Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) | Public government information (factual data only) | State/LGA/ward codes and names |
| Directory of Polling Units, Jan 2015 (Internet Archive copies) | INEC | Public government publication (factual data only) | Ward cross-check, aliases |
| Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, First Schedule | Federal Republic of Nigeria | Public law | Capitals, FCT council HQs, legal totals, aliases |
| Result Viewing portal (IReV) | INEC | Public government information (factual data only) | Senatorial districts, federal and state constituencies, ward links |
| Nigeria Subnational Administrative Boundaries (COD-AB) | OCHA, from OSGOF, eHealth Africa, UN Cartographic Section | CC BY-IGO 3.0 | P-codes, centroids, LGA HQs |
| geoBoundaries gbOpen NGA ADM1/ADM2 | William & Mary geoLab, from GRID3 (2022) | CC BY 4.0 | Count cross-check (37 states, 774 LGAs); boundaries are not shipped |
| CLDR subdivisions | Unicode Consortium | Unicode License v3 | ISO 3166-2 state codes |
| Country Guidance: Nigeria (2021) | European Union Agency for Asylum | Reuse authorised with acknowledgement (factual data only) | Geopolitical zones |
| State creation dates article | BusinessDay Nigeria | Factual data only | State creation dates (unverified) |
| Lists of licensed financial institutions | Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) | Public regulatory information (factual data only) | Bank names, types, status |
| Revised Standards on NUBAN | Central Bank of Nigeria | Public standard | NUBAN algorithm |
| Public bank lists | Paystack, Monnify | Public API responses (factual data only) | Bank codes, USSD codes |
| Heritage Bank revocation press release | CBN | Public | Bank status history |
| Access–Diamond merger reports | Nairametrics, TheCable | Factual data only | Bank status history |
| Mobile Number Allocation Table | Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) | Public regulatory information (factual data only) | Phone prefixes |
| Area Codes by Zone and Primary Centre; National Numbering Plan (Oct 2022) | NCC | Public regulatory information (factual data only) | Landline area codes, number blocks |
| Numbering Regulations 2008 (Official Gazette No. 68) | NCC | Public law | Number structure |
| Special Numbering Services determination (2022) | NCC | Public regulatory information | 0800 toll-free, 0700 non-toll-free |
| National Road Traffic Regulations 2012 (Official Gazette No. 101) | Federal Republic of Nigeria | Public law | Plate formats and colours |
| National Digital Alphanumeric Postcode System | NIPOST | Not redistributable; only the published format is described | Postcode format check |
Where a source publishes no open licence, naija-data only uses plain facts from it, such as names, codes and prefixes, and never copies its documents or text. If you are a rights holder and object to how your data is used, please open an issue or email the maintainer.
Deliberately not used
Section titled “Deliberately not used”- GRID3 Operational Wards (CC BY-SA). The share-alike licence would pass on to our files, and the boundaries cover only 24 states.
- OpenStreetMap (ODbL) and Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Both have share-alike terms.
- NIPOST postcode records. They are only available through a gated API with no open licence.