The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has blamed some of its registration officers for the appearance of suspected artificial intelligence-generated photographs and other irregularities in the preliminary register of voters.
The Commission’s Director of Information and Communication Technology, Lawrence Bayode, disclosed this on Friday during an interview on Arise Television, amid growing public outrage over alleged discrepancies in the newly released voter register.
INEC has come under criticism following reports of duplicate entries, photographs suspected to have been generated by artificial intelligence and the inclusion of deceased persons in the register.
The controversy intensified after screenshots circulated on social media showing entries from a polling unit in Etsako West Local Government Area of Edo State, featuring photographs suspected to be AI-generated.
Addressing the concerns, Bayode said some registration officers who had access to the Commission’s portal allegedly manipulated records and introduced questionable information into the database.
“We have registration officers on the field. And these registration officers, they have login details to log into the system,” he said.
He added: “So what we have found is that some of these registration officers, not all of them now, some of them across the states nationwide, they’ve done different things to bring these irregularities onto the register.”
Bayode specifically acknowledged that some of the photographs were AI-generated, attributing their appearance in the register to what he described as poor registration practices by officers authorised to capture and upload voters’ details.
“Some of these pictures are AI-generated, but very bad registration. And this thing got into the register by the registration officers and because they have access to register people,” he said.
The ICT director further disclosed that the Commission had identified how some of the irregularities were introduced through its Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS), although he could not explain the motive behind the actions.
“When the ABIS was run on the system, we saw these people. We know what they did. We know how they did it. But honestly, I don’t know why,” he said.
He also explained that INEC had been working to clean up the voter register even before publishing the preliminary version, noting that the exercise was being carried out under pressure to meet the statutory 90-day timeline.
The controversy has renewed concerns about the accuracy and credibility of the voter register, with questions being raised about the Commission’s verification processes and safeguards against the introduction of fraudulent records.
