2027: INEC raises alarm over election funds, AI threats

From** Romanus Ugwu,** Abuja

Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Joash Amupitan, has raised concerns over critical challenges confronting preparations for the 2027 general election, disclosing that the commission is still awaiting full release of funds earmarked for technology and election operations.

Amupitan also warned that the growing sophistication of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven disinformation, coupled with lingering public distrust arising from technological failures during the 2023 general election, could pose serious threats to the credibility of the 2027 polls.

Against the backdrop of the challenges, he disclosed that INEC was embarking on a comprehensive audit of its electoral technology infrastructure and considering a mock presidential election to stress-test accreditation, result transmission and viewing systems before Nigerians go to the polls.

He warned, however, that even a flawless performance of INEC’s technology on election day would no longer be sufficient to guarantee the integrity and credibility of the election because threats had increasingly shifted to the information space.

Amupitan, who was represented by National Commissioner, Sani Adam, spoke in Abuja at the 13th Annual International Conference of the Association of Communication Scholars and Professionals of Nigeria (ACSPN).

Giving an insight into the state of preparations for the crucial election, the INEC chairman disclosed that the commission had proposed a substantial budget, with significant provisions for technology, election operations and replacement of accreditation devices lost or damaged during the last electoral cycle.

But the commission is yet to receive all the money. “I should also be candid about the resourcing reality behind these ambitions. INEC has proposed a substantial budget for the 2027 general election, with significant allocations set aside specifically for technology and election operations, including the procurement of new accreditation devices to replace those lost or damaged during the last cycle.

“Full release of these funds is still being awaited, yet preparations continue,” he said.

Amupitan disclosed that INEC’s Information and Communications Technology team had already opened discussions with manufacturers on procurement of devices despite the funding situation.

He said preparations for the technology audit and proposed mock election were also proceeding alongside the budget process rather than waiting for its conclusion.

The INEC boss equally confronted one of the major controversies that dogged the 2023 general election — the performance of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV).

According to him, while both technologies were introduced to close longstanding credibility gaps in Nigeria’s elections, the experience of 2023 demonstrated that technology intended to strengthen confidence could itself become a source of distrust when it failed to perform as expected.

“2023 also taught us, painfully and publicly, that the same portal whose purpose was to build trust can, when it falters under load or when uploads are delayed, become the very evidence cited to question that trust,” he said.

Amupitan said INEC would therefore not simply redeploy the same systems in 2027 and hope they perform better.

“It is why, as we look toward 2027, the commission is not simply reinstalling the same systems and hoping for a smoother outcome.

“We are pursuing a more rigorous path: a comprehensive audit of our electoral technology systems, covering system redundancy, penetration testing and disaster recovery planning, so that we understand our vulnerabilities before an election exposes them rather than after,” he said.

As part of the preparations, the commission is also exploring what could amount to its biggest pre-election technology stress test — a mock presidential poll ahead of the general election.

“We are also exploring the conduct of a mock presidential election ahead of 2027, a full test-run of accreditation, transmission and results viewing under conditions that mirror election day as closely as possible,” Amupitan disclosed.

“These are not cosmetic gestures. They are a direct answer to the concerns raised about the reliability of our technology in 2023, and a signal that the commission intends to arrive at the next general election having stress-tested its own credibility before Nigerians are asked to stake theirs on it.”

He stressed that technology alone would, however, not determine whether Nigerians accepted the outcome of the 2027 election.

“But even a flawless technical performance on election day will not, by itself, protect the integrity of an election in 2027. The threat has migrated. It has moved from the accreditation machine to the information ecosystem that surrounds it,” he warned.

Amupitan identified generative AI as one of the emerging dangers, warning that the technology had made it increasingly cheap and easy to fabricate convincing videos, voices and images capable of throwing an election into confusion.

He painted scenarios in which fake footage could show an INEC official announcing a result that never existed, a cloned voice could falsely portray a presidential candidate as conceding defeat while collation was still underway, or fabricated images could purport to show ballot papers already thumb-printed before voting began.

“A synthetic clip of an election official announcing a result that was never announced, a cloned voice attributed to a candidate conceding a race that is still open, a fabricated image of ballot papers already marked before polls open — these are no longer hypothetical scenarios reserved for science fiction panels,” he warned.

According to the INEC chairman, the danger lies particularly in the speed and scale at which manipulated information can now spread.

“A rumour once needed a marketplace, a newspaper column or a radio broadcast to travel,” he said, noting that AI-generated misinformation could now spread nationally within hours.

Amupitan warned that such disinformation could gradually destroy the common basis on which more than 90 million registered voters would be expected to accept the same declared election result.

“There is instead a slow erosion of the common ground on which we ask over ninety million registered voters to trust the same declared result,” he said.

He therefore called for electoral technology and communication to be treated as interconnected components of election security.

“The security of our servers and the credibility of our public messaging are now the same problem viewed from different angles.

“A technically secure system that is poorly explained invites suspicion. A well-explained process running on an insecure or untested system invites disaster,” he said.

Consequently, Amupitan said INEC would strengthen digital monitoring and rapid-response mechanisms capable of detecting false claims about the electoral process and responding before they gain traction.

He said the commission could no longer afford to take days to respond to damaging misinformation when fabricated claims could spread across the country within hours.

“In an environment where a fabricated claim can circulate nationally within hours, an election management body that takes days to issue a clarification has effectively conceded the narrative before it has spoken,” he warned.

For INEC, he said, the challenge ahead of 2027 would therefore be two-fold: ensuring that BVAS, IReV and other election infrastructure work when millions of Nigerians need them simultaneously, and defending the electoral process against an information environment increasingly capable of manufacturing convincing falsehoods at unprecedented speed.

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