The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has warned that the growing use of artificial intelligence to spread disinformation poses a serious threat to the credibility of the 2027 general elections.
INEC Chairman, Prof. Joash Amupitan, SAN, also disclosed that the commission was conducting a comprehensive audit of its electoral technology systems and considering a mock presidential election to test its preparedness ahead of the polls.
The development was contained in a statement signed by INEC Director of Voter Education and Publicity, Victoria Eta-Messi.
Amupitan spoke on Wednesday in Abuja in a keynote address delivered on his behalf by INEC National Commissioner, Sani Adam, SAN, at the 13th Annual International Conference of the Association of Communication Scholars and Professionals of Nigeria.
The INEC chairman said the credibility of the electoral process increasingly depended not only on the integrity of ballots, the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and result sheets, but also on how electoral information was communicated, understood and trusted by voters.
He stressed the need for electoral technology and communication to be treated as a single discipline, arguing that the effectiveness of election technology could be undermined if voters did not understand how the systems worked or lacked confidence in the information provided by the commission.
Amupitan said the deployment of BVAS and the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) was designed to address longstanding concerns about electoral transparency by allowing citizens to view polling-unit results before they are moved to collation centres.
According to him, electoral legitimacy can only be earned when systems perform reliably, voters understand how they work and the commission provides honest explanations when shortcomings occur.
INEC Audits Electoral Technology Ahead of 2027
On preparations for the 2027 elections, Amupitan said INEC was reviewing its technology infrastructure, including system redundancy, penetration testing and disaster recovery plans.
He added that the commission was also considering conducting a mock presidential election before the 2027 polls to test voter accreditation, result transmission and result viewing under conditions designed to mirror an actual election day.
The exercise, he said, would help INEC identify weaknesses and strengthen its systems before the general elections.
AI Poses New Disinformation Challenge
The INEC chairman also raised concerns over the rapid development of generative artificial intelligence capable of producing convincing synthetic audio, videos and images that could be used to mislead voters.
He noted that AI had made manipulated content cheaper to produce and increasingly difficult to identify, with fabricated political materials already emerging during recent electoral cycles in parts of West and East Africa.
Amupitan said the threat went beyond fabricated content, warning that algorithmic microtargeting could allow political actors to send different, and even contradictory, messages to specific segments of the electorate.
He stressed the need for stronger collaboration among electoral bodies, communication professionals, technology experts, political actors, civil society organisations and the media to protect the integrity of electoral information ahead of 2027.
