Nigerians Not Algorithms Will Decide 2027 Elections-INEC
The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Joash Amupitan, has declared that algorithms will not decide the 2027 General Elections, assuring Nigerians that the Commission has put structures in place to ensure that artificial intelligence (AI) serves the democratic process and does not control it.
Amupitan gave the assurance in Abuja while delivering the keynote address at the Artificial Intelligence and Democracy Forum 2026, held in collaboration with Yiaga Africa.
Speaking on the guiding question of the opening plenary, “Will Algorithms Decide the 2027 Vote?”, the Chairman said the answer was an unequivocal no.
“Algorithms will not, and must never, decide the 2027 vote,” he said, explaining that the choice of who leads Nigeria belongs exclusively to the Nigerian people.
He noted that the Forum, themed “Safeguarding the 2027 General Elections in the Age of Artificial Intelligence”, was taking place exactly ninety-two days before the general elections, at a time when the digital landscape had shifted significantly since 2023.
According to him, the Commission is no longer dealing only with the “analogue” challenges of logistics but with a world in which AI can influence what a voter sees, how the voter thinks and how the voter trusts.
The INEC Chairman, however, cautioned that a simple “no” should not conceal the disruptive power of the technology.
He said AI would shape the information environment in which citizens form their choices, influence the speed and security of electoral logistics, and alter the tactics of both democratic actors and anti-democratic disruptors.
“The greatest threat we face is not the hacking of a ballot box, but the hacking of the voter’s mind,” Prof. Amupitan stated.
He said generative AI had reduced to near zero the cost of producing convincing deepfakes, including videos of candidates saying things they never said and of INEC officials giving false instructions.
“If a voter cannot distinguish between truth and a synthetic lie, the foundation of informed consent crumbles,” he said.
The INEC Chairman warned that a well-timed deepfake video or cloned audio recording of a candidate, an election official or a security chief could announce a false candidate withdrawal, a postponement of the election or inflammatory ethnoreligious statements, and spread virally within minutes.
He added that malicious actors could also impersonate the INEC Chairman, Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) and other officials to issue fake guidelines, declare unauthorised results or instruct voters to stay home.
On the Commission’s response, Amupitan disclosed that INEC had created an AI Unit within its ICT Directorate, equipped with real-time digital monitoring tools, deepfake detection software and data analytics expertise to track technical threats and information manipulation targeting the electoral process.
He affirmed, as a foundational policy, that no critical electoral decision, result collation, voter accreditation or candidate qualification would ever be fully automated or delegated to an autonomous system.
“Human accountability, statutory oversight and judicial review will remain paramount at every stage of the electoral chain,” he said.
The INEC Chairman further stated that any AI tool or automated system deployed by the Commission for logistics, database management or operational support must undergo rigorous audits to guarantee explainability, fairness and security before deployment.
He said the Commission was also working on a Digital Strategy to audit the information environment, and was partnering with technology platforms for the rapid debunking and labelling of AI-generated content touching on electoral processes.
On logistics, he said AI-driven geospatial analytics could help INEC deploy ad-hoc staff, vehicles, boats and sensitive materials to 176,846 polling units before 7:30 a.m. on election day, by analysing traffic patterns, weather forecasts, road conditions and security incidents to generate optimal routes.
He added that automated inventory systems could forecast demand for non-sensitive materials and monitor warehouse stock in real time.
On electoral integrity, the INEC Chairman said that while human collation remained the statutory standard for declaring results, AI could perform parallel statistical audits on polling unit result sheets uploaded through the eEC8A, flagging mathematical inconsistencies, atypical entry patterns and image quality defects for administrative review.
He said AI-enhanced Automated Biometric Identification Systems (ABIS) were also accelerating the detection of facial and fingerprint duplicates in the National Register of Voters, which holds over 103 million records, to protect the principle of “one voter, one vote.”
He further said Natural Language Processing tools could translate voter education materials, polling unit locators and Permanent Voters Card (PVC) collection guidelines into dozens of indigenous languages, including audio formats for visually impaired and low-literacy citizens, while automated tools could help map accessibility barriers for Persons with Disabilities (PWDs).
The INEC Chairman added that AI-driven threat detection could protect the Commission’s digital platforms, including the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) and the INEC Candidates Nomination Portal (ICNP), by identifying and isolating cyber threats in milliseconds.
Amupitan said these innovations were building on a decade of technological reforms, including the Smart Card Reader (SCR), the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and IReV, which he said had eliminated legacy vulnerabilities such as ballot box stuffing, manual accreditation fraud and arbitrary result manipulation.
He disclosed that the Commission had digitised candidate nominations, processing over 15,000 nominations across 22 political parties, introduced online voter registration for the first time in Nigeria, and was executing a decentralised, multi-phased PVC collection exercise nationwide.
He added that additional BVAS units had been procured, with consignments already being received.
He said the judiciary should prepare for novel disputes involving AI-generated evidence, and media organisations should establish internal digital forensic desks to verify user-generated content before publication
On the scale of the exercise, the INEC Chairman said the 2027 General Election would be the largest democratic exercise on the African continent, involving over 103 million registered voters across 774 Local Government Areas, and that ten of the 14 major operational milestones under the Electoral Act 2026 had been successfully executed.
