Google, the most popular search engine in the world, has created a doodle honouring Nigeria on its homepage as the country conducts its presidential and parliamentary elections today. The doodle depicts a ballot box for an election in the traditional Nigerian colours of green, white, and green.
When you click on the doodle, you’ll be taken to a Google search page with “Nigeria National Elections 2023” as the keyword search item and the INEC’s Timetable for the 2023 General Election as the first results.
As Nigerians vote for who will succeed President Muhammadu Buhari, the search engine is using a special doodle to commemorate the occasion.
Google Doodle is a special, temporary alteration of the Google logo on the search engine’s homepage to commemorate holidays, events, achievements, and notable figures. Google has been creating Doodles since the late 1990s, with the first being a simple stick figure placed behind the second “o” in Google.
Google Doodles are created by a team of illustrators, designers, and engineers known as the Google Doodle team. They are responsible for researching and selecting the events, figures, or themes to be featured, designing the artwork, and coding the interactive elements. They serve as a fun and creative way to bring attention to important events and people, while also showcasing the talent and creativity of the Google Doodle team.
The most recent was the celebration of Jollof Rice, a West African dish simmered in reduced tomatoes, onions, peppers and regional spices. Innovation Village reported Google contracted Nigeria-based guest artist Haneefah Adam to create the artwork and Senegalese jazz musician, Hervé Samb, to create the soundtrack.
Speaking on the election, polls have been reportedly opened at 07:30 GMT for the nation’s presidential and parliamentary elections.
There are 93.46 million registered voters as released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on January 11, 2023. According to Dataphyte, INEC arrived at the new number after cleaning the register by removing 53,264 ineligible voters from the preliminary register it published on its website in November 2022 following the objections raised by Nigerians.
The West African country transitioned from army rule to democracy in 1999 but its elections have been plagued by violence and fraud. This presidential race is seen as the most unpredictable in recent Nigerian history. The ballot counting and collating process is expected to take several days.
