By Tosin Adesile
Prof. Joash Amupitan, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has assured Nigerians that the outcome of the 2027 general elections will be determined by votes cast by citizens, not artificial intelligence (AI) or algorithms.
Amupitan gave the assurance while delivering the keynote address at the 2026 AI and Democracy Forum, organised by Yiaga Africa and its partners to examine how to safeguard Nigeria’s 2027 general elections amid the growing use of artificial intelligence in electoral processes.
He stressed that technology, regardless of its sophistication or autonomy, must serve human needs and should not replace the democratic will of the electorate.
According to him, the choice of who leads Nigeria will be determined by ballots cast across the country’s 176,846 polling units, reaffirming that the 2027 elections would not be decided by algorithms but by Nigerians’ votes.
Speaking at the forum, Yiaga Africa’s Executive Director, Samson Itodo, said the gathering was necessary amid declining public confidence in the electoral process and growing concerns about whether votes would count in the next general elections.
Itodo said findings from the organisation’s national voting survey indicated that many Nigerians doubted the credibility of the electoral process, stressing the need for stakeholders to take deliberate steps to rebuild trust and strengthen public confidence ahead of 2027.
He noted that safeguarding elections was a collective responsibility that extended beyond INEC to include civil society organisations, technology developers, election observers and other stakeholders.
Itodo commended INEC for its efforts to incorporate artificial intelligence into its operations, describing the establishment of an AI division within the commission as an important step in addressing emerging technological challenges in election management.
He said discussions at the forum would examine how to maximise the benefits of AI while mitigating the risks it could pose to electoral integrity, transparency and public trust.
The Yiaga Africa chief emphasised that only INEC had the statutory authority to declare election results, adding that other stakeholders could collect, aggregate and retain electoral data but must not present their analyses as official results.
He urged the commission to sustain transparency in its operations and called on organisations deploying AI to disclose their methodologies and ensure accuracy in their analyses.
Itodo also advocated the use of election analysis dashboards to track results published on INEC’s Result Viewing Portal (IReV), while stressing the importance of making AI systems auditable.
He said all technological tools used in the electoral process should be designed to allow independent verification, adding that transparency and accountability were essential to building public confidence in the 2027 general elections.
