The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has attributed the appearance of artificial intelligence (AI)-generated photographs and fraudulent entries in its preliminary voter register to unauthorized practices by its field registration officers.
Engr. Lawrence Bayode, INEC’s Director of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), clarified the development at the commission’s headquarters in Abuja following public concern over discrepancies spotted after the document was published online.
Bayode explained that field registration officers possessed dedicated login credentials to access the registration system, enabling some individuals to bypass established protocols.
According to the commission, certain officers across various states engaged in unauthorised practices that introduced questionable entries into the database. While some compromised uploads resulted from poor operational capturing on the field, others were deliberately forged using AI software.
The ICT director noted that the Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) detected these irregular entries during routine processing. He assured the public that the commission understands how the infractions occurred and has initiated a full internal review, though the ultimate motives of the officers involved remain under investigation.
The issue came to light following a multi-stage rollout of the preliminary register. The document was initially displayed physically across nationwide Registration Areas for the statutory Display, Claims, and Objections exercise. In response to public demands for broader access, INEC subsequently uploaded the preliminary register to its official online portal.
Addressing the public outcry, INEC emphasized that the published document is merely a draft undergoing systematic cleaning, rather than the final certified voter roll.
The commission confirmed that manual adjudication and ABIS checks are currently underway to purge all fake and duplicated entries before the final voter register is finalised.
