Kano governor, Abba Yusuf, has enumerated importance usage of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as an opportunity to address many of the systemic problems that have historically plagued Nigeria’s elections saying it will minimise human error and enhance transparency.
He made this assertion on Wednesday, in his address at the 5th Social Influencers Summit in Kano which was organised by the Centre For Information Technology And Development (CITAD).
However, speaking on his behalf, the Special Adviser on State Affairs to Governor Alhaji Usman Bala, said ” In light of these issues, the emergence of AI provides a promising opportunity to address many of the systemic problems that have historically plagued our elections.
Gov Yusuf hinted that ” AI has the capacity to streamline electoral processes, minimize human error, and enhance transparency. By automating sensitive tasks like vote counting, AI can help eliminate opportunities for corruption and reduce the influence of unscrupulous individuals.
He emphasized that as the costs associated with manual elections continue to rise, AI offers a cost-effective alternative. Through the digitization of voter registration, real-time data analysis, and automated vote tabulation, we can ensure more accurate, efficient, and transparent election processes.
“However, we must be equally mindful of the risks associated with AI. AI-driven surveillance, for example, has the potential to infringe on individual freedoms by being weaponized to target political opponents and monitor dissent. The rise of misinformation through AI-powered bots and deep fakes also poses a serious threat, as it can distort public perception and compromise the integrity of the electoral process,” he stated.
Earlier, the Executive Director, CITAD, Yunusa Zakariya’u, explained that it is necessary to initiate debates in the public on the use of AI to conduct elections as this will create a pathway for decisions to be taken.
“The same for this year’s is something very important to us for two reasons. First, we just had the general elections last year and we left a lot of issues. With AI, a lot of those questions will be answered. Or there might not be space for those questions to arise.
“The second thing is that there are already some off-saddle elections. For example in the next two weeks there will be governorship election in Edo state and the following month there will be Ondo.
“So we feel that given this kind of context of the election and the fact that AI has become something that everybody is talking about, we need to push to the national space so that we generate discussion and debate so that Nigeria can use the potentials AI have to improve our elections and to improve our governance.
“Influencers are people who influence issues, who influence things in our community. If you want to change you need people who will influence the actualisation of that change.
“We felt that for we to get change in our society to get the influencers to understand the issues that are relevant for the sort of transformation you want in the society.
“That is why we are bringing them so that they have better understanding and better idea about the issue at stake,” he stated.
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