INEC chair Amupitan says AI can help elections, warns of cloned voices
- INEC Chairman Prof. Joash Amupitan told an Abuja summit that AI is not a threat to democracy.
- He said the technology can speed up voter registration, logistics and data handling ahead of 2027.
- But he warned that cheap AI tools now let fraudsters clone officials' voices and fake announcements.
The chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Joash Amupitan, has said artificial intelligence should not be feared as a danger to democracy, arguing that it can make Nigerian elections run better.
He spoke on Monday at The Beyond the Ballot Summit in Abuja, as the commission prepares to bring AI into its work for the 2027 general election.
Amupitan said election bodies around the world already lean on AI-assisted tools to keep voter registers, plan the movement of materials and staff, and sort through large amounts of data. He said the same approach can sharpen INEC's planning and make its work more efficient.
"Artificial Intelligence, AI, is not an enemy of democracy," he told the summit.
The other side of the coin
The INEC chairman was careful not to paint the technology as harmless. He said generative AI tools have become so cheap and easy to use that people with bad intentions can now produce convincing fake material.
He warned that voices of well-known figures can be copied, and that realistic videos can be made showing election officials announcing results or instructions that were never given. Such tricks, he said, are now within reach at very little cost and can be aimed at weak points at particular moments in the election timetable.
For ordinary voters, that means the risk of seeing or hearing a convincing but false message about where to vote, when polls open or who has won — especially on social media, where false claims travel fast.
The concern is not abstract. Questions were raised recently after photographs, some suspected to have been made with AI, turned up in INEC's preliminary Register of Voters in Etsako West Local Government Area of Edo State.
INEC's Director of Information and Communication Technology, Lawrence Bayode, was reported as linking some of the images to irregularities allegedly introduced by registration officers who had access to the system. The commission said it was investigating and has stressed that the register is still preliminary. It will be checked, cleaned and corrected before the final version is certified.
What happens next
INEC says it will make sure any AI it uses improves the credibility, transparency and efficiency of elections rather than weakening them.
With the 2027 polls approaching, the test for the commission will be whether it pairs the new tools with strong checks — on the voter register and on false audio and video — so that Nigerians can trust what they see and hear about the election.
