Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has admitted that some of its registration officers tampered with the national voter register by inserting AI-generated photographs and other irregularities.
Lawrence Bayode, INEC’s director of information and communication technology, made the disclosure in an interview with ARISE TV on Friday.
When asked how AI-generated images entered the register, Bayode said certain registration officers across the country were responsible.
“I can tell you how AI-generated photos found their way into the register,” Bayode said. “Number one, you know, we have registration officers on the field, and these registration officers have login details to log into the system. So what we have found out 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 into the register.”
He added that the commission had started cleaning up the register.
“So, we’re cleaning up; we’re seeing a lot of things, different people doing different things, some of them similar. Some of these pictures are AI-generated, some of them not AI-generated, but very bad registration. This thing got into the register by the registration officers, and because they have access to register people,” Bayode said.
The admission follows public concern after preliminary versions of the voter register published online earlier this month appeared to contain AI-generated images and duplicate entries. The irregularities have raised questions about the integrity of the register ahead of general elections scheduled for next year.
INEC said it was investigating the matter and working to correct the anomalies.
