…seeks united front
From David Onuoja, Abuja
The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Joash Amupitan, has warned that the 2027 General Election, faces a new and dangerous threat from Artificial Intelligence (AI) deepfakes and Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI), saying elections can now be undermined long before the first ballot is cast.
Professor Amupitan raised the alarm on Monday, 2nd November 2026, in Abuja at the opening of the National Summit on Electoral Information Integrity themed “Beyond the Ballot: AI, FIMI, and the Integrity of Nigeria’s 2027 Elections,” held at the Continental Hotel.
The INEC Chairman said the summit was so critical that the Commission rescheduled the South-South leg of its zonal readiness assessment in Port Harcourt to participate. He said the summit, supported under the EU Support to Democratic Governance in Nigeria (EU-SDGN) III framework, is not just a conference but a critical defence council for democracy.
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According to him, while INEC had for decades focused on physical vulnerabilities like ballot snatching and logistics, the terrain has shifted to synthetic media, automated disinformation, deepfake fabrications and digital micro-targeting.
“Today, elections can be undermined long before the first ballot is cast,” he said, noting that public awareness alone is no longer enough against well-funded, hyper-targeted operations designed to erode trust.
Citing the 2023 Slovak parliamentary election, where an AI-cloned audio of a party leader discussing vote-buying went viral during a 48-hour campaign blackout, Prof. Amupitan said the incident paralysed fact-checkers and proved that speed and coordinated response, not just awareness, are crucial.
He listed high-risk windows to include pre-election fake directives, eve-of-election deepfake drops timed to exploit the 24-hour campaign silence from January 14 and February 4, 2027, and false result announcements during collation.
To counter the threat, the Chairman outlined INEC’s priorities to include voter education on “how to verify” not just “how to vote,” use of pre-bunking messages in local languages and Pidgin on WhatsApp, strengthening digital infrastructure, real-time debunking within minutes, and partnership with platforms like TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, X and Telegram. He disclosed that INEC already has an MoU with TikTok.
He called for a united front, urging the media to prioritize accuracy over speed, civil society to bridge digital literacy gaps in rural areas, tech partners to develop detection tools for Nigerian languages, and security agencies to distinguish between free speech and digital crimes. Stressed that measures against disinformation must not become a pretext for censorship, as press freedom and dissent remain the lifeblood of democracy.
Professor Amupitan also said that INEC expects three concrete outcomes from the summit: clear inter-agency escalation protocols detailing who detects, verifies, escalates and communicates; institutionalized fact-checking desks with direct access to INEC, and simulation exercises for AI-driven election scenarios ahead of January 16, 2027, when presidential polls will hold.
