Nigeria election: AI-generated data found on voter roll - Semafor

Nigeria’s election authority is under pressure to address the discovery of AI-generated voter information and ID photos on a draft electoral roll, which has sparked concerns about the integrity of January’s presidential vote and risks further undermining faith in the politics of Africa’s largest democracy.

With just over 10 weeks to go until the vote, President Bola Tinubu is locked into a re-election battle against a slate of familiar rivals in campaigning that revolves around economic and security issues. More than 103 million Nigerians registered to take part in the poll, according to the Independent National Electoral Commission, but its numbers and overall preparations have come under intense scrutiny.

Advocacy groups, technology analysts, and former INEC officials have led calls for an independent inquiry to identify how fabricated information came to be included. Many have warned that the false data would add to the cynicism about the organizer’s commitment to a fair election and weaken voter participation. Nigerian elections have often struggled with low turnout: At just 27%, the 2023 vote saw the lowest turnout since the country’s return to democratic government in 1999.

INEC, responding to the backlash, said the contentious register is a temporary document open to review for errors, and that it would look into “possible technical or procedural lapses” that allowed AI intrusions. A senior official blamed rogue staff, and said the commission “doesn’t know why” they would use their logins to tamper with the roll.

These responses have been unsatisfactory given the gravity of the situation, analysts say. “INEC wants to make light of it to say that they are doing a cleanup,” Kolawole Oluwadare, a senior official at Lagos-based rights group SERAP, told Semafor. “This goes beyond what INEC can handle in house, which is why we are calling for an audit” by an external body, he added.

Martin Uwakwe, a US-based technology analyst who reviewed the draft roll, found several errors in the register beyond the AI-generated issues, including duplicates and the presence of people who had died. He said the electoral commission could use Nigeria’s existing identity database to authenticate voter data and ensure integrity. “These things are very easy to do but I don’t know why we are still having this conversation in 2026,” he told Semafor.

Resolving issues with the register is critical for voting to be credible on election day. With each election cycle, Nigeria has increased the role of digital technology, including biometric tests, in the voting process to improve transparency and efficiency. But the present qualms around AI manipulation of voter data may make people skeptical of the reported outcome.

For example, the portable electronic devices that will be used to accredit voters on election day (known as BVAS) could be manipulated by those who have access to the back end potentially disenfranchising unwanted voters. “If the people with access are compromised, it becomes an issue,” Uwakwe said.

The hope that technology would drastically transform Nigerian elections to make them vastly more credible did not materialize in the 2023 election. BVAS devices malfunctioned en masse, while poor cell signals and other system failures delayed voter accreditation and result availability across the country.

Only around a third of results could be viewed on INEC’s website two days after voting ended, fueling tensions that threatened to spill over. Legal challenges to Tinubu’s victory ultimately fell through because courts determined that it was not mandatory for INEC to publish results electronically.

A repeat of these issues could have damaging long-term effects on Nigeria. “When citizens perceive elections as flawed or manipulated, confidence in democratic institutions diminishes, leading to political apathy, protests, and even violence,” Agathus Chibuike Mgbeahuruike, a Nigerian political analyst, wrote for the Abuja-based Center for Democracy and Development in a recent post.