Nigeria’s election commission has acknowledged a problem in the document the whole 2027 election rests on. Lawrence Bayode, the Independent National Electoral Commission’s director of information and communication technology, said on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics that the commission’s Automated Biometric Identification System had flagged 268 records in the preliminary Register of Voters for suspected artificial intelligence-generated photographs and other irregularities, and that the records are under examination.
The controversy began when the commission published the preliminary register online on October 26. Screenshots circulating on social media showed questionable photographs attached to voter records, particularly in parts of Edo State, alongside complaints of duplicate registrations, entries for deceased persons and registered voters unable to find their own details. Bayode said some individuals had allegedly exploited a registration option designed for persons with disabilities who have incomplete or no fingers to create questionable profiles. The commission drew a line it will have to defend case by case: photographs generated entirely by AI will be removed where confirmed, while genuine photographs merely enhanced with AI phone features will not automatically exclude a voter.
The response has escalated beyond the commission’s own cleanup. Rabiu Kwankwaso, the Nigeria Democratic Congress vice-presidential candidate, demanded a thorough, transparent and independent investigation with public findings and accountability for anyone culpable. The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project wrote to President Bola Tinubu asking him to direct the Nigeria Data Protection Commission to investigate alleged manipulation of personal information in the register under the Data Protection Act 2023. Clement Nwankwo of the Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre separately questioned the register’s growth from more than 90 million to 103 million voters.
The commission’s position is procedural and time-bound: the preliminary register is not the final document, the display, claims and objections process exists to surface exactly these errors, and verification and cleanup are to be completed before the final register is certified on December 15, 2026. That date, six weeks before the January 16, 2027 presidential election, is now the credibility deadline for the timetable the commission locked last week.