The independent national electoral commission has been admonished by the Obidients movement against the proposed use of artificial intelligence for operations in the forthcoming 2027 general elections. This was said in respect of underlying issues of electoral transparency, result transmission, and credibility of commission processes that are yet to be resolved.
Yunusa Tanko, the national coordinator of the Obidient movement, gave this warning in a statement issued on Tuesday in Abuja. This statement was given in response to Professor Joach Amupitan, the INEC Chairman, revealing that the commission had started positioning AI tools ahead of the 2027 general elections. Amupitan revealed that INEC was making use of AI tools to point out inconsistencies and administrative mistakes in the results of the election.
Image Credit: Digital Nigeria
The INEC Chairman said that the commission was tightening its defense against AI-generated misleading information that can produce false result sheets, cloned voices of electoral personnel, fictitious videos, and falsified official documents. The National Coordinator of the Movement, Tanko, said that the movement declined INEC’s proposed initiative to use AI, stating that the reason was that the commission has yet to extensively explain how the technology will work, the issues it will provide solutions to, and the measures to put in place to prevent its misuse or abuse.
Image Credit: People’s Gazette Nigeria
Yunusa Tanko stated that an investigation was recently carried out by Mundx Analytics. In the investigation, it was discovered that presidential results from more than 50,000 polling units were posted from people’s phones. He contended that credible elections could not be guaranteed by technological advancement alone in the absence of institutional credibility. He said that the introduction of artificial intelligence into a system that cannot give a detailed account of its present failure is not electoral reform. He said it was simply an attempt to divert the attention of Nigerians from the crucial questions of institutional transparency, accountability, and independence.
The INEC has been consistently probed by the Obidient movement to publish its agenda for the 2027 general elections, including the technologies, safety measures, and processes it intends to operate with. The Obidient movement also called for an autonomous audit of the commission’s electoral technology and an open declaration of the outcomes and solutions. In addition, Tanko requested transparent and provable results transmission, stating that all votes cast at the various polling units must be precisely depicted in the final results. He strongly advised INEC to give account of its proposed use of AI and ensure that the technology can be independently verified and open to public examination or investigation.
Image Credit: Independent National Electoral Commission
The Obidient movement coordinator Tanko said that the INEC chairman still has enough time before the election to reevaluate his approach. At the All Nigeria Editors Conference that was held in Enugu on the 24th of September 2026, Mr. Amupitan, while speaking, said that INEC was already deploying AI tools to discover disparities and administrative mistakes in election results.
