A voice message arrives on election morning. It sounds like an INEC official announcing that voting has been postponed. A woman at Mbiama, Kontagora, Ife or Ogoja who has arranged transport and prepared to queue stays home. The message is false. By the time she learns the truth, voting has ended.
Elsewhere, a fabricated video appears to show a candidate insulting a community. Anger spreads faster than the correction. Even after the deception is exposed, resentment remains.
These situations are hypothetical, but the danger is plain: an election can be distorted without altering a single ballot. Mislead people about when to vote, whom to trust or what happened at their polling unit, and their choices can be manipulated before counting begins.
Nigeria must prevent AI from becoming either a new instrument of electoral manipulation or a new excuse for avoiding responsibility.
That possibility gave urgency to the AI and Democracy Forum held in Abuja recently. YiagaAfrica, INEC, the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development, and Dataphyte Foundation jointly convened the forum, which asked: “Will Algorithms Determine the 2027 Vote?” For the ordinary voter, the issue is simpler: will technology protect my choice, or help somebody steal it?
Some Nigerians will reasonably ask why artificial intelligence deserves attention when intimidation, deliberate vote tallying manipulation by those entrusted with the responsibility, vote-buying, security breaches and impunity already threaten elections. AI is not the source of every electoral weakness. It will not explain away misconduct or repair institutions unwilling to enforce their rules. But it can give familiar abuses greater speed, wider reach and a more convincing disguise.
The answer is neither panic nor blind enthusiasm. It is to insist that every use of AI that can affect a voter’s rights or an election result remains open to scrutiny, challenge and correction.
INEC’s assurance that people, not machines, will retain authority over important electoral decisions is welcome. Yet a person can remain in charge on paper while accepting whatever a computer recommends. Human oversight matters only when the official understands the evidence, checks the conclusion and can reject it. Honesty by INEC , its officials and other institutions involved in elections is critical .
Imagine software flagging a voter as having registered twice. It may have uncovered wrongdoing. It may have made a mistake. Before that citizen is prevented from voting, someone must examine the evidence and explain the decision. The voter must have a fair opportunity to challenge it. “The computer said so” cannot settle a question about a citizen’s rights.
The same standard must govern results. Suppose technology reading a polling-unit result sheet mistakes a three for an eight. Who checks the entry? Which record settles a disagreement between paper and electronic figures? Who corrects the error, and when?
These are not questions reserved for engineers. A wrong digit can change a total. An unexplained discrepancy can convince a community that its votes have disappeared. Nigerians should not need a degree in computer science to understand how results move from the polling unit to the final declaration, which is currently a major challenge in the electoral chain.
INEC must explain that journey clearly: who records the figures, who verifies them, who can correct mistakes and who answers when something goes wrong. Repeated assurances that a system works cannot replace evidence that it worked in a particular case.
Preparation must therefore count for more than impressive demonstrations. Systems need independent testing. Staff need practical training. Contractors need clear obligations. Backup arrangements must work under pressure, not merely look reassuring in a document. If technology fails, citizens deserve an explanation and a remedy, not a lecture about its complexity.
But even reliable election administration cannot protect a voter who has been persuaded to stay home by a fabricated announcement.
AI deception threatens elections in two directions. It can make events that never happened appear real. It can also help politicians deny events that actually occurred. Confronted with an authentic recording of misconduct, a public figure may simply declare: “It is AI.”
We could then face a campaign in which false evidence is believed and genuine evidence dismissed. People would judge recordings less by their authenticity than by whether they favour their preferred candidate. Eventually, some would stop checking altogether.
That exhaustion is dangerous. Democracy suffers when citizens believe lies. It also suffers when they conclude that truth is impossible to establish and participation is pointless. Protecting the vote therefore means protecting people’s ability to discover what happened.
The proposed Electoral Information Integrity Coalition could help, provided it becomes more than another platform for statements. Election officials, journalists, fact-checkers, civil society and telecommunications companies need agreed arrangements for detecting dangerous falsehoods, verifying claims and delivering corrections to affected communities.
Consider a false postponement message circulating in a local-language WhatsApp group. An English-language denial buried on a website will not repair the damage. The correction must reach the same audience through channels people use: community radio, trusted local voices, shareable audio and community networks. It must arrive while people can still act.
There must also be a firm boundary. Criticism of INEC is not automatically disinformation. Neither is an investigation, an observer’s report or a citizen’s account of wrongdoing. Protecting voters must never become an excuse to silence them. Those checking claims must explain their evidence and correct their own mistakes.
Political parties face a straightforward test. Condemning a fake video is easy when it attacks your candidate. The harder question is what you do when it damages your opponent.
Candidates should reject deceptive impersonation, clearly label campaign audio, images or videos substantially created or altered by AI, and correct fabrications circulated in their interest. Commitments against disinformation mean little if campaign teams quietly reward those who spread it. Parties should establish consequences for breaches before competition makes dishonesty convenient.
Technology companies must demonstrate that their promises work for Nigerians. Can a voter easily report a fabricated recording? Will the company respond before the damage is done? Do its safeguards cover content in Nigerian languages, not only English? A reporting button offers little protection if nobody answers when it matters.
Local innovators also deserve encouragement, but no exemption from scrutiny. A homegrown product can help observers organise reports or citizens find reliable information. Its origin, however, does not prove its reliability. Nor does an award establish election readiness. Testing, privacy protection and honest explanations of limitations must come before deployment.
Civil society organisations publishing independent findings should meet the same standard. They should explain their sources, verification methods and correction procedures. Demanding openness from INEC carries greater authority when those making the demand practise it themselves.
For citizens, the responsibility begins with a pause before forwarding. A message does not become true because it comes from a friend, a religious leader or a supporter of our preferred candidate. An alarming claim about voting arrangements deserves confirmation through established electoral information channels. When we discover that something we shared was false, we should correct it where we circulated it.
This does not transfer the burden of protection to the voter. Citizens cannot reasonably be expected to investigate every recording while institutions and companies evade their duties. Public education must support effective safeguards, not substitute for them.
Before 2027, Nigerians should demand four clear answers. Where will INEC use AI, and who will supervise each use? How can a voter challenge a decision affecting the right to vote? What will parties and platforms do when deceptive campaign material appears? How will corrections reach affected people quickly, in languages they understand?
These questions should be answered publicly, early enough for weaknesses to be exposed and repaired. Election morning is too late to decide who handles a fabricated postponement notice. A disputed result is the wrong moment to discover that nobody knows how to correct a computer-generated error.
Responsibility must not disappear between an electoral body, a contractor and a social-media platform. A citizen seeking redress should not be passed from office to office while each organisation blames another. Everyone must know who is responsible when something goes wrong.
Used responsibly, AI can help voters obtain reliable information, alert officials to threats and support the examination of evidence. Rejecting those possibilities would miss the point. The issue is whether technology serves accountable institutions and informed citizens, or becomes a shield for people who refuse to answer questions.
We should judge electoral innovation from the voter’s side of the counter. Can a citizen understand the decision? Can the evidence be checked? Can an error be challenged and corrected before the right at stake is lost?
The measure of progress is not how modern an election appears but whether ordinary people can exercise their rights without deception, exclusion or unanswered questions about results.
Return to the woman who stayed home because a fabricated voice sounded official. Her lost opportunity cannot be restored by a statement celebrating technological progress. Nor should another citizen lose a vote because nobody would question a machine.
In 2027, no politician, platform or algorithm should own the truth. Nigerians must remain free to question claims, choose their leaders and demand evidence that their votes were faithfully counted. Technology earns its place in democracy only when it strengthens that authority, never when it displaces it.
Dr Dakuku Peterside is an expert in leadership and management turnaround.