The Obidient Movement has demanded stronger safeguards and public scrutiny of the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) proposed use of artificial intelligence in the 2027 election results process.
The group said INEC should not deploy the technology until it publishes a clear framework that can be independently audited and verified by stakeholders.
In a statement signed by its Media and Communications Directorate, Onyeka Dike, the movement said the commission’s disclosure that its AI governance framework was still being finalised raised concerns about its readiness for the 2027 elections.
INEC Chairman, Prof Joash Amupitan, recently announced the creation of an AI division within the commission’s ICT department and said AI auditing tools would be incorporated into results verification under human supervision.
The Obidient Movement, however, said the commission must first make the rules governing the technology public.
It demanded that every election result should remain traceable to the polling unit and independently verifiable by political parties, observers, journalists and voters.
The group also urged INEC to publish Forms EC8A, EC8B, EC8C, EC8D and EC8E on the IReV portal to strengthen transparency in the collation process.
“The 2027 election must be determined by voters’ ballots and a verifiable collation process rather than opaque technological procedures,” the group said.
The movement also raised concerns over Amupitan’s warning to media organisations against announcing or declaring results that had not been officially released by INEC.
It said the warning required further clarification, particularly as the commission expands the use of technology in the management and verification of election results.
The group linked its concerns to disputes surrounding the 2023 presidential election and urged INEC to take measures capable of restoring public confidence before the next general election.
It also alleged links between some INEC officials, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the administration of President Bola Tinubu, including an unverified claim involving Amupitan, Tinubu and Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, in France.
The allegation was not supported by evidence in the statement.
The Obidient Movement nevertheless called for a system in which election results could be independently tracked from individual polling units through collation centres to the final declaration.
It said transparency, rather than reliance on technology that stakeholders could not independently scrutinise, should guide INEC’s preparations for the 2027 election.
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