THE Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has assured Nigerians that critical electoral decisions, including voter accreditation and result collation, will not be left entirely to automated systems in the 2027 general elections.
INEC Chairman, Prof. Joash Amupitan (SAN), said human oversight would remain central to the electoral process, stressing that technology and artificial intelligence (AI) would not determine who wins an election.
“Algorithms will not, and must never, decide the 2027 vote,” Amupitan said on Wednesday.
According to INEC’s Wednesday Bulletin, the chairman spoke in Abuja while delivering the keynote address at the Artificial Intelligence and Democracy Forum 2026, organised in collaboration with Yiaga Africa.
Amupitan said no critical electoral decision, including result collation, voter accreditation and the qualification of candidates, would be fully automated or handed over to an autonomous system.
“Human accountability, statutory oversight and judicial review will remain paramount at every stage of the electoral chain,” he said.
Responding to the question of whether algorithms would decide the 2027 elections, Amupitan said the responsibility for choosing Nigeria’s leaders rested with the electorate.
He warned that advances in digital technology had created new challenges for election management, extending beyond traditional concerns about logistics and the physical security of election materials.
According to him, artificial intelligence could influence the information voters receive, their perceptions of candidates and their confidence in the electoral process.
“The greatest threat we face is not the hacking of a ballot box, but the hacking of the voter’s mind,” he said.
The INEC chairman expressed concern about the growing availability of tools that can produce convincing fake videos, audio recordings and other digital content.
He said such tools could be used to create videos showing candidates making statements they never made or to circulate false instructions in the name of election officials.
“If a voter cannot distinguish between truth and a synthetic lie, the foundation of informed consent crumbles,” Amupitan said.
He warned that fake videos or cloned audio recordings could falsely announce a candidate’s withdrawal, an election postponement or inflammatory statements capable of heightening ethnic and religious tensions.
According to him, such material could spread rapidly online before the public had an opportunity to verify its authenticity.
Amupitan also warned that individuals could impersonate the INEC chairman, Resident Electoral Commissioners and other officials to circulate fake electoral guidelines, announce unauthorised results or wrongly tell voters to stay away from polling units.
To address these risks, Amupitan disclosed that INEC had established an artificial intelligence unit within its Information and Communication Technology Directorate.
He said the unit had access to digital monitoring tools, deepfake detection software and data analytics expertise to help the commission monitor online content and identify potential threats to the electoral process.
The chairman added that any AI tool or automated system deployed by INEC for logistics, database management or operational support would undergo rigorous audits before use.
According to him, the assessments would focus on explainability, fairness and security to ensure that automated systems did not undermine electoral integrity.
He said the commission was also developing a digital strategy to monitor the information environment and working with technology platforms to help identify and correct false AI-generated content relating to elections.
Amupitan called on Meta, X, Google, TikTok and Telegram to act quickly against unlabelled synthetic media that impersonated candidates, election officials or security personnel.
He also urged the platforms to enforce disclaimers on political advertisements and restrict the use of ethnicity, religion and local origin for political micro-targeting.
The INEC chairman further appealed to political parties and candidates to adopt an Ethical AI Code of Conduct, committing themselves to avoiding deepfakes, impersonation, deceptive online advertisements and coordinated networks of automated accounts.
Despite the risks, Amupitan said the commission did not regard artificial intelligence solely as a threat, noting that the technology could improve electoral planning and administrative efficiency.
He explained that AI could support statistical checks on polling unit result sheets uploaded through the electronic EC8A results form.
According to him, automated tools could identify mathematical inconsistencies, unusual patterns in data entry and poor-quality images for further examination by election officials.
He stressed, however, that such checks would support administrative review rather than replace the legally prescribed process for collating and declaring election results.
On election logistics, Amupitan said geospatial analysis powered by AI could help the commission plan the deployment of ad-hoc staff, vehicles, boats and sensitive election materials to polling units.
He said the objective was to ensure that election materials and personnel reached the required locations before 7:30 a.m. on election day.
The chairman put the number of polling units at 176,846 and said the 2027 general elections would involve more than 103 million registered voters across the country’s 774 local government areas.
He also said 10 of the 14 major operational milestones under the Electoral Act 2026 had been completed.
The two-day forum brought together electoral officials, political party representatives, civil society organisations, security agencies, technology companies and media representatives.
Among those in attendance was Abdoulaye Sylla, chairperson of the Economic Community of West African States Network of Electoral Commissions and chairman of Senegal’s electoral commission.
Amupitan said artificial intelligence could assist election administration but lacked the moral responsibility and constitutional authority required to make decisions on behalf of citizens.
He maintained that INEC’s responsibility was to ensure that voters could exercise their rights freely and that their choices were accurately reflected in the electoral process.
The commission’s position is that technology should strengthen electoral transparency and efficiency without replacing human accountability or the legal safeguards governing elections.
With the 2027 general elections approaching, the challenge for INEC will be to use digital tools to improve election management while preventing misinformation and ensuring that the final decisions remain subject to established electoral laws and procedures.