The European Union (EU) and the International Press Centre (IPC) have warned that artificial intelligence-generated deepfakes, manipulated media and coordinated disinformation campaigns could undermine the credibility of Nigeria’s 2027 general elections.
The warning was issued on Monday at the opening of a two-day National Summit on Electoral Information Integrity in Abuja, organised under the theme, “Beyond the Ballot: Safeguarding Electoral Information Integrity in the Age of AI.”
EU Ambassador to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Gautier Mignot, and IPC Executive Director, Lanre Arogundade, said the growing sophistication of artificial intelligence had made it easier to create and circulate convincing false information capable of misleading voters and influencing public opinion.
Mignot said AI offered opportunities to improve communication, translation and accessibility but could also make political deception easier to produce and harder to detect.
He warned that efforts to counter disinformation must not become a justification for censorship, suppression of political dissent or restrictions on press freedom.
The EU envoy stressed that citizens questioning public institutions should not automatically be regarded as spreading misinformation, while journalists reporting institutional failures should be recognised as performing an important democratic responsibility.
He called on stakeholders to establish clear response mechanisms before electoral tensions intensified, including agreed procedures for verifying suspicious content and communicating accurate information to the public.
Former Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, urged the commission to consider deploying AI-powered chatbots to provide voters with reliable electoral information.
Jega said such tools could help citizens obtain timely official responses and verify claims circulating on social media, reducing the influence of misleading information.
He said the proposal had emerged from discussions at the 2024 Cambridge Conference on Electoral Democracy, which examined how election management bodies, particularly in Africa, could use technology to address misinformation.
INEC Chairman, Prof. Joash Amupitan, also warned that AI could be exploited to circulate fabricated election results, forged operational directives and false announcements capable of creating confusion and potentially triggering violence.
He said manipulated audio recordings and documents could falsely announce election outcomes or claim that elections had been cancelled in certain constituencies, undermining public confidence in the electoral process.
Amupitan said INEC was strengthening its technological capacity and communication systems to detect manipulated content, verify suspicious media and issue authoritative clarifications.
He identified voter education, technological safeguards, timely responses and cooperation with social media platforms as important measures for protecting electoral information.
Arogundade said awareness campaigns alone would not be sufficient to address the threats, calling instead for coordinated action among electoral institutions, media organisations, technology companies, fact-checkers and civil society groups.
He said the summit brought together stakeholders to examine emerging threats, test institutional preparedness and develop an electoral information integrity response protocol with clearly defined responsibilities and timelines.
The meeting also featured practical discussions on foreign information manipulation and interference, the responsibilities of digital platforms, the influence of social media content creators and the role of journalism in an increasingly AI-driven information environment.
The organisers said the discussions were intended to strengthen institutional cooperation and public resilience against disinformation while protecting freedom of expression, media independence and citizens’ right to information.
As Nigeria approaches the 2027 general elections, the stakeholders said safeguarding electoral information would require institutions to respond quickly to false claims while ensuring that measures against disinformation do not undermine democratic rights.
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