With exactly 92 days to the 2027 General Elections, the INEC Chairman acknowledged that AI will undeniably shape the information environment, influence electoral logistics, and alter the tactics of both democratic actors and anti-democratic disruptors.

“While algorithms will not decide the vote, AI will undeniably shape the information environment in which citizens form their choices, influence the speed and security of electoral logistics, and alter the tactics of both democratic actors and anti-democratic disruptors,” he said.

Prof. Amupitan described the 2027 General Election as the largest democratic exercise on the African continent and one of the most complex administrative undertakings in the world, with over 103 million registered voters, 176,846 polling units across 774 Local Government Areas, and multi-tiered balloting spanning presidential, national assembly, governorship, and state assembly elections.

He noted that INEC has already executed ten of the fourteen major operational milestones stipulated by the Electoral Act 2026, procured additional BVAS units, digitised candidate nominations through the INEC Candidates Nomination Portal (ICNP), processing over 15,000 nominations across 22 political parties, and introduced online voter registration for the first time in Nigeria.

The INEC Chairman outlined opportunities for AI to optimise election administration, including predictive logistics and route optimisation, automated result audit assistance, biometric database hygiene, multilingual voter engagement through Natural Language Processing, and AI-driven cybersecurity defence.

He, however, affirmed the Commission’s commitment to the Human Oversight Principle, stressing that no critical electoral decision, result collation, voter accreditation, or candidate qualification will ever be fully automated or delegated to an autonomous system.

“Human accountability, statutory oversight, and judicial review will remain paramount at every stage of the electoral chain,” he said.