Opeolu Eniola | Communications/ Media Consultant

You see these AI-generated photographs and duplicate entries in INEC’s voters’ register? The same faces appearing under different names and voter identification numbers? (See screenshots attached). Section 51(2) of the Electoral Act 2026 could be exploited to rig the election without triggering the statutory over-voting threshold. Let me explain. Under Section 51(2), the presiding officer is required to cancel a polling unit result where the number of votes cast exceeds the number of accredited voters. Now relate this to what we are seeing in INEC’s register. INEC’s voter registration process requires biometric capture, yet we are seeing identical photographs attached to different names and voter identification numbers, alongside AI-generated images. How did these records enter a system that is supposed to capture and verify the biometric information of individual voters? This is why @inecnigeria must explain to Nigerians how it intends to safeguard our votes. If somebody has found a way to bypass live biometric capture and introduce fictitious identities into INEC’s database, what assurance do we have that the same vulnerabilities cannot be exploited on election day to fraudulently accredit those identities? We cannot simply assume that because biometric accreditation is required by law, it is impossible to manipulate. Now consider this scenario. A polling unit has 1,000 registered voters. On election day, 500 genuine voters are accredited, but another 450 fictitious identities are fraudulently recorded as accredited. The official accreditation figure becomes 950. If 450 fraudulent ballots are introduced alongside 500 legitimate votes, the total votes cast will also be 950. Under Section 51(2), cancellation for over-voting would not be triggered because the number of votes cast does not exceed the recorded number of accredited voters, despite the presence of 450 fraudulent ballots. The danger is that the accreditation figure, which the law relies upon to detect over-voting, could itself become the instrument used to conceal electoral fraud. And this is where I see a troubling connection between the AI-generated photographs, the duplicated voter identities and the vulnerability in Section 51(2). Think about what someone deliberately exploiting these vulnerabilities would seek to achieve: manipulate the register, manipulate accreditation, introduce fraudulent ballots within the inflated accreditation figures, and Section 51(2) would not trigger cancellation for over-voting. The connection is too obvious to dismiss without investigating whether these vulnerabilities are being deliberately exploited together. This looks like a deliberately designed scheme, serious enough to demand an investigation that goes beyond correcting or deleting suspicious records from the register. INEC must establish whether the underlying registration and accreditation safeguards have been compromised. Again, INEC says it will complete its verification and clean-up exercise before certifying the final voters’ register on 15 December 2026. But December 15 is too far away to wait for answers because the presidential elections are scheduled for 16 January 2027. Cleaning the register alone is not enough if the vulnerabilities that allowed these suspicious records into the system could also compromise election-day accreditation. INEC must explain now how these records entered its database, whether they have corresponding biometric records and how they passed registration verification. It must identify those responsible for this manipulation, hold them accountable & publicly explain to Nigerians the measures being taken to protect the integrity of both the voters’ register & the accreditation system. Because Sec. 51(2) only compares the number of votes cast with the number of accredited voters. It does not, by that calculation alone, establish whether those accredited voters are genuine or whether every ballot counted was lawfully cast.