The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it has identified registration officers responsible for introducing questionable entries, including suspected artificial intelligence-generated photographs, into the preliminary voters’ register.
The commission’s Director of Information and Communication Technology, Dr Lawrence Bayode, disclosed this on Friday, alleging that some officials across the country abused their access to the voter registration platform to compromise the database.
Speaking on Arise Television, Bayode said the commission uncovered the irregularities through its Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS), which was deployed to scrutinise the registration records.
He explained that registration officers were given individual login credentials to access the system, but some allegedly used their privileges to introduce records that did not meet the required registration standards.
According to him, the irregularities were not limited to AI-generated photographs, as some entries also contained images captured through improper registration procedures.
“We have registration officers on the field. And these registration officers, they have login details to log into the system.
“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,” he said.
Bayode said the commission's examination revealed that some of the photographs were artificially generated, while others were products of poor registration practices.
“You are seeing some of these pictures are AI-generated. Some of them are not AI-generated, but very bad registration. And this thing got into the register by the registration officers because they have access to register people,” he added.
The ICT director expressed confidence that the commission had traced the questionable entries and established how they were introduced into the database, although he said he could not determine the reasons 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,” Bayode stated.
He further disclosed that INEC had commenced efforts to sanitise the voters’ register before releasing the preliminary version, adding that the commission was working within the statutory 90-day timeline for the exercise.
The revelation comes amid public criticism of the commission following the upload of the preliminary voters’ register to its website on October 26.
The online publication triggered concerns after screenshots emerged on social media showing suspicious photographs attached to voter records, particularly in parts of Edo State. Some of the images were suspected to have been generated using artificial intelligence.
Beyond the photographs, members of the public also raised concerns about alleged multiple registrations and cases of registered voters who claimed that their details were missing from the online database.
INEC had previously clarified that the online register was identical to the preliminary version displayed physically at Registration Areas across the country from October 9 to 15.
The exercise was conducted under the Display, Claims and Objections process, which allows registered voters to verify their information and report omissions, errors or questionable entries.
In a statement on October 27, the commission acknowledged that questionable records had been detected and flagged during the physical display exercise.
It said a review had commenced to identify and correct the affected entries, while insisting that the online publication did not represent the completion of its data-cleaning exercise.
INEC also maintained that the preliminary register was not the final certified voters’ register, which would be published after the necessary corrections and verification procedures.
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