Yiaga Africa, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and other stakeholders have called for stronger safeguards against the misuse of artificial intelligence (AI) in Nigeria’s 2027 general elections, warning that deepfakes, disinformation and cyber threats could undermine electoral integrity.
The call was contained in a communiqué issued yesterday at the end of the 2026 AI and Democracy Forum, held in Abuja from October 14 to 16, which brought together electoral bodies, technology companies, security institutions, civil society organisations, journalists and policymakers to examine the implications of AI for the elections.
The forum recommended that INEC publish an election-specific AI governance framework detailing the proposed applications of the technology, their risks, data sources, safeguards and the responsibilities of technology vendors.
They also called on the commission to establish a transparent protocol for managing election results, covering the capture of physical Form EC8A, any AI-assisted extraction of figures, electronic transmission, verification, collation and the resolution of discrepancies.
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The communiqué stressed that human verification and legally prescribed procedures must remain central to electoral processes, particularly where errors could affect voting rights, the credibility of results and public confidence.
It recommended independent pre-election audits, stress tests of results-upload and transmission systems, and verification of technology vendors’ claims, adding that AI-generated alerts about duplicate voter registrations or anomalous results should trigger human investigation rather than automatic deletion, rejection or suspension.