Former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega, has urged the commission to deploy artificial intelligence-powered chatbots to provide voters with verified information and counter election-related misinformation ahead of the 2027 general elections.
Jega said the technology could help citizens quickly access authentic electoral information and verify claims circulating online, as stakeholders warned that increasingly sophisticated AI tools could undermine election credibility.
He spoke on Monday at a national summit on AI, Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI), and electoral information integrity, themed “Beyond the Ballot: Safeguarding Electoral Information Integrity in the Age of AI,” in Abuja.
The former INEC chairman said Nigeria must anticipate emerging threats, prepare adequately and establish a rapid-response mechanism to address electoral disinformation before the 2027 polls.
“What is most important, of course, is how we prepare, anticipate these challenges, and take appropriate measures, particularly in terms of setting up a framework of rapid response to address this,” he said.
Jega said the deployment of chatbots by election management bodies was among the measures discussed at the 2024 Cambridge Conference on Electoral Democracy.
He explained that chatbots equipped with officially verified information could help voters obtain accurate answers and determine the authenticity of claims being circulated during elections.
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“I believe that such positive uses of AI may be worthy of the effort, while of course looking wide-eyed and vigilant for other efficient and effective ways of protecting information integrity,” he said.
Jega urged stakeholders to move beyond identifying the dangers of AI to developing practical measures to protect public confidence in INEC and the electoral process.
The current INEC Chairman, Prof. Joash Amupitan, also warned that the growing accessibility of generative AI tools had lowered the barriers for malicious actors seeking to interfere with elections.
Amupitan, however, said AI was not inherently hostile to democracy, noting that electoral bodies globally were already deploying machine learning and other technological applications for voter registration, logistics planning, data analysis and administrative efficiency.
He warned that the same technology could be exploited to produce convincing fake videos, cloned voices of election officials and automated online campaigns designed to simulate public outrage.
According to him, fabricated operational directives, forged accreditation portals and false claims about voter registration could create confusion ahead of the 2027 elections.
He also warned that manipulated announcements about election results or the cancellation of polls in strategic constituencies could trigger unrest and weaken confidence in the electoral process.
The INEC chairman called for stronger collaboration among the commission, security agencies, fact-checkers, media organisations and technology platforms to identify emerging threats, verify evidence and respond promptly.
He said INEC must prioritise voter sensitisation, strengthen its digital infrastructure and ensure that institutions responsible for electoral information exercise restraint in protecting the integrity of the process.
The Ambassador of the European Union to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Gautier Mignot, said the manipulation of electoral information threatened public trust and citizens’ ability to make informed democratic choices.
Mignot warned that fabricated announcements could send voters to wrong polling units, while false claims about results could deepen suspicion before verified information became available.
He said AI could improve translation, accessibility and communication but could also make deception easier to produce and harder to detect.
The EU envoy cautioned that the challenge extended beyond detecting deepfakes, stressing the need to build an electoral information environment where credible information was accessible, institutions communicated reliably and manipulation received a coordinated response.
He identified three priorities for Nigeria ahead of 2027: preparing before electoral pressure builds, making partnerships operational and protecting democratic rights while safeguarding electoral information.
Mignot said stakeholders must agree on verification procedures, communication responsibilities and escalation channels before election day.
He also warned against using the fight against disinformation to suppress legitimate criticism, investigative journalism or political disagreement.
“A citizen questioning an institution is not necessarily spreading disinformation. A journalism reporting a failure is performing the democratic function,” he said.
The EU envoy further called for measures to protect women from online intimidation, falsehoods and coordinated abuse, while ensuring electoral information was accessible in local languages, through community media and to persons with disabilities.
Delivering the keynote address, Prof. Abigail Ogwezzy-Ndisika warned that Nigeria’s experience in the 2015, 2019 and 2023 general elections showed an escalation in the sophistication and reach of digital electoral manipulation.
She said the 2015 elections exposed the country to data-driven interference, including voter psychological profiling and targeted advertising by foreign political consultants seeking to exploit ethnic and religious divisions.
By 2019, she said, digital manipulation had evolved into a domestic disinformation economy involving paid social media influencers, political operatives and coordinated networks spreading unverified information.
Ogwezzy-Ndisika urged stakeholders to establish an institutionalised Electoral Information Integrity Response Protocol before the 2027 elections, warning against fragmented and uncoordinated responses to false information.
She identified five major threats: AI-generated political manipulation, foreign influence operations, the weaponisation of authentic evidence, institutional fragmentation and government overreach in combating disinformation.
She proposed a six-stage response framework involving early warning and detection, incident triage, independent forensic verification, digital evidence preservation, strategic escalation, rapid public counter-messaging and post-incident reviews.
The framework, she said, should include joint monitoring mechanisms, multiple social-listening channels and automated systems to identify emerging synthetic threats before they go viral.
“Prevention is very important before virality because it will have permeated so hard and, you know, the damage will have been done,” she said.
Ogwezzy-Ndisika also advocated a non-partisan verification hub for independently examining flagged synthetic content and standardised procedures for preserving digital evidence.
She cautioned, however, that measures to protect electoral information integrity must not violate citizens’ rights or undermine freedom of expression.
“Protecting that information integrity must never become a pretext for authoritarian overreach because we’re looking at rights and safeguards,” she added.
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