Imagine you’re trying to navigate a bustling marketplace. Everywhere you look, people are shouting, trying to sell you something. Some of it sounds good, some of it sounds suspicious, and sometimes, someone is even trying to trick you into buying something completely fake. This is pretty much what our world feels like right now, especially when it comes to news and information, and it’s particularly worrying for Nigeria.
The National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), along with two passionate organizations, the Centre for Media and Society (CEMESO) and the International Press Centre (IPC), recently got together to talk about a growing crisis: something called “deepfakes” and all sorts of other AI-driven lies. Think of deepfakes as super-realistic, computer-generated fakes – videos, audios, or even pictures – that are almost impossible to tell from the real thing. It’s like someone can now create a perfect digital clone of a person saying or doing something they never actually said or did. These organizations are worried because these advanced fakes, combined with coordinated campaigns of misinformation (spreading false information, even if unintentionally) and disinformation (spreading false information intentionally to deceive), are a huge threat to Nigeria’s democracy, especially as elections approach. They’re essentially shouting a warning: we need our journalists, our information gatekeepers, to become super-sleuths, incredibly good at figuring out what’s real and what’s fake.
At a special meeting in Abuja, experts painted a stark picture: Nigeria’s election information is becoming a playground for manipulators. They’re using AI to churn out convincing fakes and carefully planned digital propaganda. Imagine a world where a video of a politician making a controversial statement could be completely fabricated, or an audio recording of a private conversation could be expertly cloned, all designed to sway public opinion. Stella Erhunmwunsee, representing the Director-General of the NBC, put it simply: this flood of false information is no longer just a nuisance; it’s a direct threat to the country’s stability, to people’s trust in their government, and to the very idea of a fair democracy. She emphasized that ensuring information is true is now just as important as ensuring the elections themselves are fair. We’re in an information jungle, she said, and it’s getting more complex and dangerous by the day. Lies, particularly around election time, don’t just hurt the media’s reputation; they shake the foundations of the country itself. When people are fed distorted information, their understanding of reality is warped, and ultimately, the integrity of our elections is jeopardized.
Erhunmwunsee was clear: fact-checking isn’t some extra credit assignment for journalists anymore; it’s a non-negotiable core responsibility. It means journalists need to actively and constantly verify information, using all the technology available to them. It’s not enough to just be accurate sometimes; verification needs to be a proactive, ongoing process, powered by technology. She highlighted a new “AI Fact-Checking Tool Guide” as a significant step forward, helping journalists integrate verification into their daily work. However, she also issued a crucial reminder: technology alone isn’t a magic bullet. Without strong ethical principles and professional discipline from journalists themselves, the problem of information chaos will only continue to grow. It’s like having an amazing new detective kit, but if the detective doesn’t know how to use it responsibly or has bad intentions, it won’t help.
Akin Akingbulu, the executive director of the Centre for Media and Society (CEMESO), painted an even more alarming picture. He warned that Nigeria is entering a perilous new age where artificial intelligence has made lying “industrial-scale.” Think of it like a factory churning out lies and propaganda, but instead of physical products, it’s churning out convincing digital deception. He explained that AI allows false stories to be created “at scale, at speed, and with a sophistication that makes detection exponentially harder.” He shared some chilling statistics: globally, deepfake content has exploded by over 500% between 2019 and 2023. Nigeria has already felt the sting, he noted. He described instances during the 2023 elections where AI-generated videos falsely showed famous international celebrities endorsing specific presidential candidates. Even more disturbing, cloned audio recordings were used to invent conversations between political figures.
Akingbulu recounted a particularly disturbing example: in June 2025, a synthetic video was deliberately created to stir up tensions between farming and herding communities in Benue State, a region with a history of deadly violence. He also pointed to AI-generated clips of foreign leaders supposedly discussing Nigerian oil and political matters, circulating online with hundreds of thousands of views – manipulating public opinion and spreading propaganda. He put it dramatically: “What we are witnessing is the simultaneous scaling up of the threat and the scaling down of our defenses. That asymmetry is not a coincidence. It is a crisis.” He stressed that disinformation campaigns in Nigeria aren’t random acts of mischief. They are purposeful, exploiting existing ethnic and religious differences, targeting vulnerable groups, and ultimately eroding faith in democratic institutions. He even linked this trend to declining voter participation, noting a significant drop to 27% during the 2023 general elections. These lies are designed to “weaponize identity,” he added, hitting hardest at those least equipped to fight back. He also raised concerns about the “shadow industry” of paid online influencers coordinating propaganda campaigns across social media platforms like WhatsApp and X (formerly Twitter). He warned that if urgent action isn’t taken, the 2027 elections could see “the most technologically complex disinformation campaign in African history.” CEMESO, through its initiative haltfake.org, is actively tracking and trying to neutralize AI-driven misinformation and deepfake endorsements. They’ve already trained over 100 journalists and newsroom leaders and plan to establish “Campus Newsroom Labs” to educate young journalists in civic education and fact-checking.
Lanre Arogundade, the Executive Director of the International Press Centre, echoed these fears, emphasizing that AI has made the job of verifying information incredibly difficult. He pointed out that AI can now generate highly believable videos, images, and audio that can easily mislead the public. “Deepfake and other forms of AI manipulation are indeed making it increasingly difficult for people to know what to believe,” he stated. He stressed that tackling AI-generated disinformation requires both human wisdom and sophisticated technological tools. His key warning was that AI manipulation tools are evolving much faster than our current defenses and fact-checking systems. This summit, supported by the European Union, brought together a diverse group of journalists, civil society members, regulators, and media stakeholders, all united in the goal of strengthening the integrity of electoral information, not just for the upcoming elections in Ekiti and Osun, but for the crucial 2027 general elections. The message is clear: if we don’t act now, the truth itself could become a casualty, and with it, the very foundation of Nigeria’s democracy.