The former commissioner urged the electoral commission to publish clear rules governing artificial intelligence before deploying the technology in sensitive areas such as election results management.
A former National Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Okechukwu Ibeanu, has warned that the commission’s plan to deploy Artificial Intelligence (AI) in election results management could undermine confidence in the 2027 elections if clear rules and safeguards are not established.
He raised concerns about the proposed use of AI to extract figures from physical EC8A result sheets into electronic formats, saying Nigerians must know how the system would work, how discrepancies would be resolved and who would be accountable for decisions made through the technology.
Mr Ibeanu spoke at a plenary session titled “Governing AI in Nigeria’s 2027 Elections: Safeguards, Accountability and Elections Integrity” at the AI and Democracy Forum in Abuja.
The forum was organised by Yiaga Africa in partnership with INEC, Microsoft, TikTok, the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID), Dataphyte, the MacArthur Foundation, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) and other partners.
Mr Ibeanu rejected suggestions that INEC had run out of time to develop regulations ahead of the 2027 elections.
He said the commission could immediately issue preliminary guidelines under its existing legal powers while working towards a more comprehensive framework.
“I don’t agree that it is late. It is possible for INEC to make a set of regulations, however preliminary they may be, to make sure that some of these things are brought under control,” he said.
He cited Section 151 of the Electoral Act, which empowers INEC to make regulations, guidelines and manuals for the administration of the law.
He also referred to Section 160 of the Constitution, which provides for the commission’s autonomy in regulating its internal affairs.
The former commissioner said INEC had already developed a two-year roadmap for AI adoption, with governance identified as one of its key components.
He said he was involved in the establishment of the commission’s AI division in 2025 and urged the current leadership to implement the roadmap while being more open about its plans.
“One of the main issues in that roadmap was the whole question of governance of AI. And one of the things that INEC itself said it was going to do was to create a committee that will oversee this,” he said.
According to him, the proposed committee was expected to include civil society representation.
He urged INEC to disclose the specific functions of the committee and explain how Nigerians would be able to scrutinise the commission’s use of AI.
Mr Ibeanu said the most immediate concern was the use of AI in election results management.
He said the proposed electronic EC8A system appeared designed to use AI to extract figures from physical EC8A result sheets, but questioned how the electronic version would relate to the original result sheet signed at the polling unit.
“It is not even clear exactly how this is going to work. If there are contradictions, for example, between the EC8A and the electronic EC8A, what will happen?” he asked.
He said INEC must clarify which document would take precedence where discrepancies occur and establish a transparent mechanism for resolving such disputes.
The former commissioner also questioned how figures extracted by AI would be transmitted, verified and processed at the back end.
He said Nigerians should not be expected to trust an electoral technology they cannot independently understand or scrutinise.
“The danger is to find external suppliers and hand over these things to them. And that will be very, very risky for managing elections,” he said.
He therefore urged INEC to build sufficient internal technical capacity and ensure that the procurement and deployment of AI were governed by clearly defined institutional rules.
Mr Ibeanu also warned that the use of AI in the 2027 elections would extend beyond INEC, with political parties and candidates likely to deploy technology to analyse election data and independently interpret results.
He described the potential contest as an “algorithmic war” in which political actors could increasingly rely on technology to collect, analyse and interpret election results.
He called for regulations governing political parties’ use of AI during campaigns, including requirements for labelling AI-generated campaign materials and sanctions for violations.
According to him, transparency must begin before election day, with INEC providing sufficient information about the technologies it intends to deploy and how they will affect the electoral process.
Also speaking, Cynthia Mbamalu, director of Programmes at Yiaga Africa, called on INEC to immediately publish its AI governance framework so that political parties, civil society organisations, the media and other stakeholders can scrutinise it.
Ms Mbamalu said Nigerians needed to know how election results would be captured, transmitted, verified and collated under the proposed system.
She specifically called for the publication of a comprehensive results management protocol covering the process from polling units to the final collation stage.
