2027: Microsoft, Google strengthen election safeguards as FG launches voter campaign

• Microsoft offers election situation-room support, curbs AI images of candidates

• Google admits gaps in local-language content moderation •NOA launch nationwide campaign against vote buying, violence and apathy

From J**uliana Taiwo-Obalonye and Aidoghie Paulinus, **Abuja

Microsoft and and Google have pledged to strengthen safeguards against digital manipulation ahead of Nigeria’s 2027 general elections, with Microsoft offering to participate in a local election situation room and restrict AI-generated images involving candidates.

The commitments came at the AI and Democracy Forum in Abuja, where stakeholders demanded greater transparency in electoral technology and warned that weak moderation of Nigerian-language content could allow online threats to escalate into violence.

Microsoft’s Senior Director, Global Elections, Dave Leichtman, said the company would use the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) final candidate list to restrict image generation involving the listed individuals.

“We are going to take the finalised list from INEC when it is finalised,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Federal Government, through the National Orientation Agency (NOA), has launched a nationwide voter-education campaign against apathy, vote buying and electoral violence, using local languages, radio, community engagement, drama and digital platforms.

Leichtman said Microsoft maintained mechanisms for reporting misleading election content and unauthorised use of candidates’ likenesses, with provisions for removing offending material.

He also committed the company to participating in a locally organised election situation room to monitor threats in real time, provided it received an invitation.

“Microsoft is 100 per cent willing to send somebody to a situation room locally. We will do that,” he said, adding that he had personally represented the company in similar arrangements in the United States and Canada.

Leichtman said Microsoft’s threat intelligence and analysis teams monitored cybersecurity threats and disinformation narratives, including those associated with foreign state actors.

The company, he added, worked with civil society partners to identify misleading narratives and make authoritative electoral information more accessible through its search engine and AI platforms.

“For election information, INEC is the authoritative source. You need to know when, where and how to vote.”

He said Microsoft’s AI tools would provide information about candidates and their positions without recommending whom voters should support.

“We will tell you about the candidate if you ask. We will compare candidates’ stances on issues, but we will not recommend a candidate over another,” he said.

The forum was organised by Yiaga Africa in partnership with INEC, Microsoft, TikTok, the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID), Dataphyte, the MacArthur Foundation, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, the German Agency for International Cooperation and other partners.

Google’s Head of Government Affairs and Public Policy for West Africa, Adewolu Adene, acknowledged that language diversity and insufficient training data remained significant obstacles to detecting harmful content in Nigerian languages.

He said Google was working with civil society organisations and other stakeholders to improve its systems’ understanding of local expressions and cultural contexts, but cautioned against assuming the challenge had been resolved.

“It would be deceitful to stand across you and say that it is perfected and we have the perfect model and solution.”

Executive Director of the Centre for Redefining Alternative Civic Engagement for Africa, Iveli Ube, had questioned how platforms incorporated local expressions into moderation, noting that gender-based violence and other digital abuse frequently occurred in languages other than English.

Adene said the volume of material uploaded to platforms such as YouTube required a combination of AI systems, human moderators and user reports.

YouTube, he said, received about 500 hours of video every minute, while reports helped platforms identify harmful content, suspicious accounts and recurring patterns.

Users and law enforcement agencies could report such material for review, he said, explaining that platforms could remove content, restrict its distribution or block channels, depending on the circumstances. Reporting, however, would not automatically trigger immediate removal.

Speaking during a masterclass, “Who Guards the Digital Gatekeepers? Platform Accountability in the 2027 Elections,” Executive Director of TechHerNG, Chioma Agwuegbo, urged security agencies to strengthen their capacity to confront digital threats without suppressing legitimate political expression.

She said agencies must distinguish genuine threats, incitement and coordinated abuse from peaceful protest, criticism of political leaders and other forms of democratic participation.

“We must protect citizens without criminalising dissent,” she said.

Agwuegbo warned that artificial intelligence, deepfakes, manipulated images, coordinated harassment and politically motivated disinformation had complicated the security environment, requiring greater technical expertise and timely intervention.

According to her, AI could fabricate sexual images or manipulate photographs, including removing the hijabs of Muslim women, exposing victims to humiliation, blackmail and possible reprisals within their communities.

She urged law enforcement agencies to understand these forms of digital violence and respond before damaging material spread widely and caused further harm.

Online monitoring, she stressed, must be linked to effective security responses.

“We can talk about digital gatekeepers all we want, but if there is no corresponding or commensurate offline gatekeeping or guarding, we are wasting our time,” she said.

Recalling her experience monitoring the 2011 general elections, Agwuegbo said her team identified young women trapped in a hostel during post-election violence and contacted established networks within INEC and security agencies, leading to their rescue.

She said the incident demonstrated the importance of connecting digital monitoring with practical intervention.

Agwuegbo also warned that weak moderation in Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, Kanuri, Fulfulde and other Nigerian languages could allow incendiary messages to circulate unchecked and trigger violence.

Citing information presented at an earlier panel, she said about 25 Hausa-language moderators were reportedly responsible for overseeing content relating to Nigeria and other Hausa-speaking parts of West Africa.

She questioned whether such limited capacity could cope with the volume of content during a politically charged election period.

“If there is violence that is being perpetrated in Igbo, in Hausa, in Yoruba, in Kanuri, in Fulfulde, in whatever language, the chance that the platforms will take that content down really quickly are very, very slim,” she said.

She urged technology companies to recruit more local-language specialists and develop moderation systems capable of recognising Nigerian cultural expressions, linguistic nuances and context.

Agwuegbo rejected the notion that platforms were neutral intermediaries, arguing that commercial interests and algorithms influenced what users saw and which narratives gained prominence.

“Platforms are not neutral. Cambridge Analytica tells us that our platforms are not neutral. Our platforms ultimately want to make money,” she said.

Algorithms, she explained, drew on information from different aspects of users’ lives to predict their interests and could expose them to violent or manipulative material they had not deliberately sought.

She warned that political actors were increasingly deploying organised groups to monitor critics, flood their accounts with hostile responses and circulate misleading information.

Agwuegbo urged civil society organisations to extend election monitoring beyond major cities into rural communities, where manipulation and violence could occur with limited media or observer presence.

While advocating closer cooperation with security institutions, she said information-sharing arrangements must protect the identities and privacy of survivors of digital abuse.

She also urged Nigerians to verify information immediately they received it, particularly old videos presented as current incidents and unconfirmed reports of electoral violence.

“Verify when you receive. A lot of times people say verify before forwarding, but I want to change that and say as you are receiving it, start verifying,” she said.

At the same masterclass, legal practitioner Olumide Babalola demanded greater transparency from INEC and technology companies, saying responsibilities and safeguards must be established before digital threats materialised. “Establish the groundwork. Mark my word, I did not say framework.”

Babalola identified deceptive information, AI-generated synthetic media, coordinated manipulation, voter-data breaches and opaque content moderation as threats requiring urgent attention.

He said platforms influenced electoral choices through the information they distributed and the algorithms determining what users saw, how frequently messages reached them and which narratives gained prominence.

Increasingly sophisticated tools, he warned, could make fabricated content appear authentic and complicate voters’ efforts to distinguish reliable information from manipulation.

He called for vulnerability assessments and penetration testing of election-related systems, including platforms used for transmitting and publishing results, to identify weaknesses before they could be exploited.

INEC, he said, should publish a comprehensive list of platforms and technology vendors expected to play significant roles in the elections, explaining their responsibilities and safeguards.

Referring to difficulties associated with uploading results during the 2023 elections, Babalola said public confidence required adequate information about the resilience of electoral systems.

He also recommended post-election accountability reports detailing systems deployed, incidents recorded, service disruptions and corrective measures.

On political advertising, he demanded disclosure of sponsors and greater transparency about how voters’ personal information was obtained and used to target campaign messages.

“Political advertising. Who paid? Who sponsored the message?” he asked.

Babalola warned that information held by digital platforms, telecommunications companies and other service providers could be exploited to influence voters without their knowledge.

The connections between telephone numbers, bank accounts, national identification records and other personal information, he said, made data protection central to electoral integrity.

He urged regulators and law enforcement agencies to investigate unauthorised exposure of sensitive information and enforce existing protections fairly.

Technology companies, he added, should explain how their algorithms ranked, recommended, restricted or removed election content, while account suspensions and content removals should carry meaningful explanations.

Automated moderation must accommodate Nigeria’s cultural and linguistic diversity, he said, to avoid treating legitimate expressions or criticism as abuse.

Babalola cautioned against suppressing freedom of expression in the name of electoral integrity, saying content should be assessed on evidence and applicable law rather than removed merely because it criticised a candidate, party or public institution.

He urged INEC to establish and publicise an authoritative verification channel for voters, journalists and others checking claims about results and voting procedures.

Platforms should preserve relevant digital evidence and provide accessible reporting mechanisms, he added, while stakeholders should agree before the polls on what constituted an electoral incident, how complaints would be assessed and which institutions would respond.

The masterclass was moderated by CJID Executive Director, Akintunde Babatunde.

Participants from Bauchi and Borno states also questioned how technology companies would reach rural communities and internally displaced persons facing insecurity, limited connectivity and low digital literacy.

Leichtman acknowledged that Microsoft’s programmes for underserved Nigerian communities were not as extensive as he would like, saying companies could not reach every community on their own.

Adene said Google worked with civil society organisations, academics, researchers, community leaders and local media practitioners to develop culturally relevant educational resources.

He cited a Kaduna State initiative using animation and Hausa-language materials to explain AI concepts, urging stakeholders to extend such efforts beyond urban centres.

Meanwhile, the Federal Government’s voter-education campaign seeks to mobilise citizens for peaceful participation and discourage conduct threatening lives, national unity and democratic stability was launched under the theme, “Your Vote, Your Voice, Our Future: Say No to Apathy, Vote Buying and Violence. Let’s Build a United Nigeria in 2027.”

Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, said every eligible citizen had a responsibility to protect democracy.

“An election is more than a day at the polling unit. It is an opportunity for citizens to decide who represents them and to influence the direction of their communities and country. When eligible voters stay away, sell their votes or resort to violence, the entire democratic process suffers,” he said.

According to a statement by his Special Assistant, Rabiu Ibrahim, the campaign will promote responsible participation, respect for political choices and rejection of electoral violence.

Idris reaffirmed the Federal Government’s commitment to strengthening the electoral process, citing President Bola Tinubu’s signing of the Electoral Act 2026, which he said introduced reforms aimed at improving transparency, accountability and public confidence.

He commended NOA Director-General, Lanre Issa-Onilu, and the agency’s staff, stressing that the campaign’s success would depend on cooperation among government institutions, electoral authorities, security agencies, community leaders and citizens.

Issa-Onilu said NOA would deploy its directorates across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory for sustained grassroots engagement.

“The National Orientation Agency will take this campaign to communities across the country, engaging Nigerians in languages they understand to promote voter participation, discourage vote buying and electoral violence, and encourage the responsible sharing of verified information,” he said.

INEC Chairman, Joash Ojo Amupitan, reaffirmed the commission’s commitment to credible and inclusive elections, while calling for early preparation and public cooperation.

“INEC is committed to conducting a free, fair, transparent, inclusive and credible 2027 General Election. Achieving this requires early preparation, strong collaboration among stakeholders and the active participation of Nigerians,” he said.

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