Inec wan deploy AI for 2027 general elections - wetin e mean for di polls and how e go work?

Di Independent National Electoral Commission (Inec) for Nigeria go deploy artificial intelligence (AI) to take make sure say wuruwuru no go dey for di kontri general elections wey dey come up for January 2027.

Chukwuemeka Chukwu, di Inec Resident Electoral Commissioner for Enugu State, southeast Nigeria, tok dis one on Thursday as e represent Prof Joash Amupitan wey be Inec oga patapata, for di conference of All Nigeria Editors wey hold for Enugu.

Oga Chukwu, wey present speech on behalf of Amupitan, tok say AI go help Inec to "detect discrepancies and administrative errors for election results".

Dis dey come as e remain just about four months to 16 January 2027 wey be di date for di presidential and National Assembly elections for Nigeria, and as many Nigerians don express doubt about weda Inec go true-true conduct di election witout ojoro.

How di use of AI go work for election?

Amupitan say Inec don also tight dia security defence system against fake news and oda lie-lie information wey pipo fit use AI to generate, like to fake result sheets, to clone di voices of electoral officers and announce fake results, to generate fake videos of Inec staff during election, or to forge official Inec documents.

E explain say di technology wey dem dey introduce no be to replace constitutional institutions, but na to complement am.

"AI must to strengthen electoral integrity, improve public service, and always remain under human control. Evri automated result check go remain strictly subject to human auditing and legal verification," e tok.

"We don start to dey deploy dis intelligent AI tools directly inside our results management process. Dis technology go automatically scan and detect discrepancy or administrative error for our result records bifor final validation," Amupitan further explain.

Di Inec oga add say di commission don create AI division inside dia ICT department, and dem don also develop AI roadmap and governance frame work wey go dey guide dia use of AI.

Also, Amupitan tok say Inec don engage di big technology companies for di world, like Microsoft and Google, on cybersecurity and how to protect dia cloud infrastructure to minimise di risk of breach.

Di commission dey also partner wit di International Foundation for Electoral Systems to build technical capacity for dia staff about how to manage risk and use AI in a responsible way ahead of di elections.

Earlier for September, oga Amiptan bin attend di Global Conference on Responsible AI and Elections for Ottawa, Canada, wia e also speak about di introduction of AI to make di election process for Nigeria more credible and efficient.

For dat gathering, Amupitan tok say di voting population of Nigeria - wit 93 million registered voters, and approximately 180,000 polling units - e make am necessary say technology must to be part of di kontri electoral process.

Ova di years, Nigeria don introduce plenty technology wey improve elections for di kontri, like di Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and di Inec Result Viewing Portal (Irev), and now, wit dis latest technology.

"AI must strengthen electoral integrity, improve public service, and always remain under human control," Amupitan tok.

Di Inec chief tok say di commission don start AI literacy training for dia staff members, no be only for di ICT department but for also di legal, voter education and risk management departments, to make sure say evribodi dey on board wit di new development.

Five ogbonge principles go guide Inec AI initiative, according to Amupitan, and dem be:

And di election proper go dey anchored on five ogbonge laws of Nigeria:

Di Inec oga insist say dia introduction of AI no mean say di technology go dey make decisions independently, but na to provide additional tools to help staff of di commission to identify possible errors and make di election process more credible.

Inec rebuilding trust

Inec dey try to rebuild public confidence afta Nigeria last general elections for 2023, wia di Inec Result Viewing Portal (Irev) bin no work well for di presidential election sake of wetin di commission bin describe as "glitch" for dia system.

Di Irev na portal wia di public suppose go to dey monitor election results as dem dey come in from across di various polling units for di kontri, in real time.

Afta votes don dey counted for each polling unit, di Inec presiding officer suppose use di BVAS machine to take picture of di form EC8A, wey be di document wia e write di result inside, and send di picture direct to di Irev.

However, during di presidential election for 2023, dat process no work. Attempts by di Inec pipo to send results to di Irev no go, even though di results of di senatorial and House of Representatives election wey also happun di same day, bin dey uploaded successfully.

Inec later explain say na glitch for dia system bin cause di presidential election results not to go, but di results later upload, but dat na afta Inec don fall back to manual collation of results.

One BBC investigation later show say di presidential election result wey Inec bin announce for Rivers State no be di same tin wit di total of results wey dey uploaded to di Irev.