The Kano state governor Abba Yusuf has described the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as an opportunity to address many of the systemic problems that have historically plagued Nigeria’s elections saying it will minimize human error and enhance transparency.
Representing the governor, the Special Adviser On State Affairs, Usman Bala, stated this in his address on Wednesday at the 5th social influencers summit in Kano that was organized by the Center For Information Technology And Development (CITAD).
“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.
“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.
“Moreover, 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
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 thee 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 contexts of 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 actualization of that change.
“We felt hat for we to get change in our society is 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.