• Independent figures risk being mistaken for official results
• How Osun poll exposed opportunities, challenges of parallel verification
• AI deepfakes raise fresh threat to credibility of election information
• Experts urge clearer distinction between observation, projection and declaration

The 2027 elections could trigger a fresh battle for credibility as political parties, civil society organisations, media platforms and civic technology groups increasingly generate their own election data, raising overlapping concerns on electoral accountability and potential illegality of the process.

Imagine a voter leaving a polling unit after watching the votes counted and the result sheet completed, only to get home and find a different result circulating on his phone.

A political party has released its own figures. A civil society situation room says its observers recorded another set. A civic technology platform has published a projection. Social media users are already declaring winners, while the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) – the only body legally permitted to declare results – is still collating the official outcome.

For the voter, the question is no longer simply whether his vote was counted. It is: which result should he believe?

That odd question could become increasingly important in the 2027 general elections as civil society organisations (CSOs), political parties, media organisations and civic technology groups expand their independent election-monitoring, verification and results-analysis platforms.

The growing number of situation rooms and independent data-gathering initiatives is intended to strengthen transparency and provide an additional check on the electoral process.

But it is also creating a more complicated information environment in which several actors can observe the same election, produce different figures and disseminate them to millions of Nigerians within minutes.

The danger is not independent scrutiny itself; it is what happens when observation, verification, projection, parallel tabulation and official declaration begin to look the same to the public.
In a closely contested election, conflicting figures can become more than a disagreement over numbers.

They can fuel suspicion, trigger premature claims of victory or manipulation, deepen mistrust of the electoral umpire and create fertile ground for misinformation and disinformation.

This is the dilemma confronting Nigeria ahead of 2027: how to preserve the valuable role of independent election monitors without allowing multiple sources of election information to become competing claims to electoral authority.

The challenge has become more urgent with the rapid development of artificial intelligence, deepfakes and instant digital communication.

At a World Press Conference and National Stakeholders Meeting in Abuja on Tuesday, INEC Chairman, Prof Joash Amupitan, announced the establishment of a dedicated Artificial Intelligence Division within the commission’s Information and Communications Technology Department to strengthen results verification and detect anomalies.

He said automated AI auditing tools had already been incorporated into the commission’s results-verification process, while a five-pillar AI governance framework with mandatory human oversight was being developed.

Amupitan also warned of a new dimension to election misinformation: the ability of generative AI to produce convincing fake voices, videos, result sheets and other official-looking documents.
“The greater danger is not any single falsehood. When deepfakes render lies believable, real truth is treated with scepticism, and cynicism replaces civil engagement,” he said.

The warning comes against the backdrop of an electoral environment that has changed dramatically.
Today, an election is no longer experienced only at the polling unit or collation centre. It is simultaneously being watched through WhatsApp groups, X, Facebook, television, online news platforms, party situation rooms, CSO monitoring centres and civic technology platforms.

Organisations including the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room, Yiaga Africa, Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), Electoral Hub, CLEEN Foundation and Women Situation Room Nigeria have, at different times, operated election-monitoring, verification or situation-room initiatives.

Their contribution has often been significant. Independent observers can document incidents that might otherwise go unnoticed, compare polling-unit results with official figures, identify irregularities and provide citizens with another means of scrutinising the electoral process.

But recent elections have also exposed the difficulty of managing several streams of election information at the same time.

From verification to competing claims
THE 2022 Osun governorship election offered an early warning. Yiaga Africa deployed its Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT), a statistical methodology designed to independently verify official election results. Its findings broadly corresponded with the results later announced by INEC.

But reports suggesting that Yiaga’s analysis amounted to a declaration of an alternative winner forced the organisation to clarify its position. Yiaga said it had not declared a winner or loser, stressing that its objective was to independently verify the official result.

The episode exposed a problem that Nigeria could face on a much larger scale in 2027: an independent organisation may intend to verify an election, while sections of the public interpret its figures as an alternative official result.

The problem became even more pronounced during the 2023 general elections.

INEC’s electronic results portal, IReV, was expected to give Nigerians unprecedented access to polling-unit result sheets. Instead, delays and technical difficulties in uploading some results became a major source of controversy, particularly during the presidential election.

That information gap was quickly occupied by political parties, CSOs, media organisations and civic technology groups operating their own monitoring and collation systems.

Some published projections. Others issued assessments of the conduct of the election. Still others analysed available polling-unit results.

The result was a crowded information space in which the official results process was no longer the only source of election information available to Nigerians.

Questions were subsequently raised about the geographical reach and methodology of some observer reports. A 2023 analysis by The Guardian found that no accredited domestic or international observer organisation had deployed observers to as many as 10 per cent of Nigeria’s 176,606 polling units, while observer groups defended the use of sampling and statistical methodologies.

The lesson was not that CSO monitoring was ineffective. Rather, it demonstrated the importance of telling Nigerians what a particular organisation actually observed, where it observed it, how it reached its conclusions and whether its figures represented observations, estimates, projections or a complete collation. That distinction could become critical in 2027.

A member of the Coalition of Democrats for Electoral Reform (CODER), Popoola Ajayi, believes independent monitoring remains necessary but should not be allowed to blur the statutory process.

“A situation room can say: ‘Our observers recorded these results.’ It can say: ‘Our independent analysis indicates that Candidate A has the highest number of votes,’” he said.

“But it should not present its own tally as the official result or claim the statutory authority to declare a winner.”

Ajayi warned that Nigeria could move from an era of inadequate electoral information into one of competing information, where several actors release different figures before INEC has completed its statutory collation.

That could be particularly dangerous in a tightly contested presidential or governorship election.
A result announced from a situation room may be intended as an analytical projection. But to a voter receiving it on a mobile phone, accompanied by a dramatic headline or a viral video, it may look indistinguishable from an official declaration. That is where misinformation can acquire political consequences.

Osun offers a recent test
THE August 2026 Osun governorship election provided a more recent illustration of both the value and complexity of independent verification.

Yiaga Africa said its independent statistical estimates were consistent with the official INEC results, reinforcing confidence that the figures declared at the state collation centre reflected the votes counted at polling units.

At the same time, the Peering Advocacy and Advancement Centre in Africa (PAACA), through its EveryVotes initiative, reported that some result sheets appeared to have been uploaded more than once on IReV, identifying duplicate uploads involving six polling units.

The two developments demonstrate why independent scrutiny remains important. One organisation can provide evidence supporting the official result while another identifies weaknesses in the electronic trail that require explanation.

Neither development, however, changes who has the statutory responsibility to declare the winner.
Indeed, a coalition under the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room had earlier raised concerns about the 2026 introduction of an electronic EC8A and an INEC backend validation process before results appear on IReV. Fourteen CSOs called for greater transparency around the process, particularly over which version of a result should be regarded as authoritative.

The concerns underline a broader point: the more sophisticated the electoral technology becomes, the greater the need for ordinary voters to understand how results move from the polling unit to the final declaration.

What does the law say?
THE Electoral Act 2026 provides a defined chain for the announcement, collation and declaration of election results.

Section 25 provides for results to be announced and collated at the polling-unit, ward, local government or area council and state levels by the designated electoral officers.

More specifically, Section 66 provides that, subject to the applicable constitutional requirements, the candidate who receives the highest number of votes shall be declared elected by the appropriate Returning Officer. The distinction is important.

A CSO can observe. A situation room can verify and analyse. A political party can collate its own figures. A media organisation can report independently generated results. But none of those activities replaces the statutory declaration by the appropriate Returning Officer.

The Act also provides for greater public access to electoral data. Section 62 provides for a National Electronic Register of Election Results containing polling-unit and collated results, while Section 60 provides for the electronic transmission of result forms and retains the signed and stamped Form EC8A as the primary basis for collation and declaration where electronic transmission fails.

The legal framework therefore allows scrutiny without creating competing official collation structures.
But this is where another problem emerges: if INEC’s own information system is slow, inaccessible or perceived as unreliable, Nigerians will naturally look elsewhere.

Election management expert, Fouad Oki, said INEC must ensure that its results-management system does not create the information vacuum that encourages alternative platforms to assume greater importance.

He said the National Electronic Register of Election Results should be accessible and usable, while polling-unit results should be available promptly enough for citizens, journalists, political parties and observers to independently check the figures.

Oki also urged observer organisations to clearly distinguish between an observed result, verified result, projection, parallel tabulation and officially declared result.

For the Convener of the Movement for Credible Election (MCE), Wale Okunniyi, the growth of alternative verification structures is itself a reflection of the public’s search for confidence in the electoral process.

When confidence in the official results system falls, he argued, stakeholders naturally begin to create what amounts to “self-help” mechanisms for checking election figures.

That is why the challenge facing INEC in 2027 will not be solved by warning CSOs or the media alone.
The commission must also ensure that there is enough timely, credible and accessible information to make unofficial sources less likely to fill the gaps.

The AI challenge is particularly important now that AI can make false information look increasingly authentic.

A fake result sheet no longer needs to look obviously fake. A fabricated voice can be made to sound like an election official. A manipulated video can appear to show a candidate conceding or claiming victory. A false result can be packaged with apparently credible figures and distributed across thousands of phones before anyone has time to verify it.

INEC’s new AI division is therefore entering an electoral environment in which the battle will not only be over the integrity of votes, but also over the integrity of the information surrounding those votes.

Amupitan has already warned media organisations against publishing privately collated results as official outcomes, urging journalists to verify election-related information before publication.

“Resist the declaration of privately collated results, because under the Electoral Act, the authority to declare results rests exclusively with the Commission,” he said.

For the media, the task will be delicate. Independently generated figures can be important news, particularly where they expose discrepancies or provide evidence against official claims. But they must be reported for what they are — independent figures, not statutory declarations.

The same principle applies to political parties. Parties are entitled to maintain their own collation structures and obtain polling-unit results through their agents. But their figures remain party-generated figures until the statutory electoral process produces the official declaration.

Nigeria is therefore heading into the 2027 elections with more observers, more situation rooms, more data, more technology and more ways of distributing information than ever before.

The real test may be whether all these systems can coexist without confusing the voter they are ultimately supposed to serve.