ABUJA — The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has explained how artificial intelligence-generated photographs and irregular records bypassed initial security filters and entered the national voter database, attributing the breach to field registration officers who abused official login credentials.
Speaking during an interview on Arise Television on Friday, October 30, 2026, INEC Director of Information and Communication Technology, Dr. Lawrence Bayode, clarified that unauthorized entries were introduced directly at the field level by registration personnel who possessed legitimate administrative access to register individuals nationwide.
“We have registration officers on the field, and these registration officers have login details to log into the system,” Bayode stated. “So what we have found is that some of these registration officers—not all of them, but some across the states nationwide—have done different things to bring these irregularities onto the register. Some of these pictures are AI-generated, and some of them are not AI-generated, but very bad registration. This got into the register through the registration officers because they have access to register people.”
The director revealed that the commission’s Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) successfully flagged the anomalous profiles and identified the specific user accounts associated with the uploads during post-registration data audits.
“When the ABIS was run on the system, we saw these people. We know what they did, and we know how they did it, but honestly, I don’t know why,” Bayode added, noting that disciplinary investigations are underway to hold offending personnel accountable.
The explanation follows public outrage after screenshots went viral across digital platforms showing synthetic, AI-generated portraits and duplicate profiles attached to voter records in parts of Edo State and other regions following the online release of the preliminary register on October 26.
Reassuring the public, the ICT director emphasized that the published database remains a preliminary release subject to ongoing adjudication and statutory cleanup under a 90-day review period. INEC is scheduled to conclude all verification, claims, and data-cleaning processes before certifying the final Register of Voters on December 15, 2026.
