How the archive works

The archive collects what Nigerian public bodies, courts and international institutions have published about Nigeria, and keeps it where anyone can search it.

What is in it

Catalogue records describe a document, a dataset, a court decision, a contract or an entry in a public register. Where the file itself could be downloaded, we keep a copy. Government files that have disappeared from gov.ng websites were recovered from the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine and from Common Crawl; each carries the date it was first captured.

How to check a file

Each file is stored exactly as downloaded. Its SHA-256 fingerprint is shown on the record. Download the file, compute its SHA-256, and compare: if the numbers match, the file is the one we hold, bit for bit.

How search works

Search looks at titles, descriptions and, for files with a text layer, the full text of the document. Scanned pages without a text layer are found by their catalogue data until they are processed.

All words must match. Use "quotes" for an exact phrase, a * at the end of a word for its variants, -word to exclude, and OR between alternatives.

What it is not

A record in this archive shows that a document exists and was published. It does not show that what the document says is true, and it is not an allegation against anyone named in it. People and company entries come from public registers and datasets such as Wikidata, OpenSanctions and the ICIJ Offshore Leaks database, and are shown as those sources publish them.

Corrections and removals

If a file should not be here, or a record is wrong, write to info@verorecord.com.