***Charges editors on rigorous fact-checking over deepfakes

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has cautioned media organisations against publishing or amplifying privately collated election results ahead of the 2027 general elections.

The commission warned that publishing such figures could create conflicting narratives, confuse voters and undermine confidence in results officially declared by the electoral umpire.

INEC Chairman, Prof. Joash Amupitan, gave the warning on Thursday while speaking at the 24th All Nigeria Editors Conference (ANEC 2026), organised by the Nigerian Guild of Editors in Enugu.

His warning came amid recent comments by the presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Peter Obi, that his team would establish an independent system to transmit results from polling units to the party’s situation room during the 2027 elections.

Obi had said the system would operate alongside INEC’s official transmission process, with the aim of ensuring that votes counted and recorded at polling units were accurately transmitted.

However, NDC chieftain, Victor Umeh, subsequently clarified that the party was not planning a parallel result declaration system.

Umeh explained that the party’s agents would transmit results only after they had been counted, declared and entered in the prescribed result forms for independent collation at the party’s situation room.

Addressing more than 500 media decision-makers, proprietors and editors at the conference, Amupitan urged editors to ensure that their platforms did not become channels for unverified election figures.

He said the media should resist the temptation to publish election results generated by political actors or other private organisations before the commission makes official declarations.

The INEC chairman said: “Let’s resist premature result declarations. Under the Electoral Act, statutory authority to declare election results rests exclusively with INEC.

“Amplifying unverified, privately collated figures published by political actors on social media creates conflicting public narratives that undermine official outcomes.

“We should use our platforms to educate citizens on spotting synthetic content, fake letterheads, and algorithmically generated rage-bait,” he said.

The INEC chairman said the media had a critical responsibility to protect the integrity of the electoral process, particularly as artificial intelligence and social media were making it increasingly difficult to distinguish authentic information from manipulated content.

According to him, the pressure on newsrooms to be the first to publish should not override the obligation to verify information during elections.

He added: “The pressure on modern newsrooms to be first is immense. But in national elections, it is vastly more important to be right than to be first.

“Rushing to publish unverified, sensational claims, whether a fake result sheet on social media, a doctored video, or an unconfirmed statement, grants institutional legitimacy to deliberate deception, causing damage to public peace that is almost impossible to reverse.”

Amupitan appealed to the Nigerian Guild of Editors to treat media gatekeeping as a critical component of national security and democratic defence.

He called for greater collaboration among INEC, media organisations and other stakeholders to combat AI-driven disinformation before, during and after the elections.

While urging editors to subject election-related claims, including result sheets, videos and statements circulating online, to rigorous verification before publication, he advised media organisations to establish fact-checking desks and incorporate digital verification tools into their breaking-news workflows ahead of 2027.

The chairman called on editors to educate voters on how to identify synthetic content, fake letterheads and other forms of AI-generated disinformation.

He warned that the danger posed by artificial intelligence went beyond individual false claims, noting that the proliferation of convincing deepfakes could undermine public trust in genuine information released by legitimate authorities.

On the role of INEC, Amupitan said the commission controlled the electoral infrastructure, while the media controlled major channels through which information about the electoral process reached citizens.

The Obi of Onitsha, Igwe Nnaemeka Alfred Achebe, urged INEC to establish a joint Rapid Response Desk involving newsrooms to promptly dispel election misinformation.

The traditional ruler also challenged newsroom editors to take a more active role in combating growing voter apathy by educating the public on the importance of participating in the 2027 general elections.

Archbishop Emeritus of Abuja, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, said a free press was necessary for a genuine democracy.

Onaiyekan said Nigeria had a diverse media landscape, citing the range of newspapers, radio and television stations, as well as the growing influence of social media.

He, however, said the emergence of artificial intelligence had introduced new opportunities and dangers to the communication space.

“We see this in the diversity of printed newspapers every day, the wide range of radio and television stations, and then most recently the social media that has made an irruption onto the media space in a way that we are still to see how far it is going.

“The latest arrival, of course, is artificial intelligence, AI. It is already working wonders in the communication space, though not without its dangers if it is allowed to spin out of human control,” he added.