Edo/Ondo polls

Ahead of Edo and Ondo states governorship elections, a Civil Society Organisation (CSO), Kimpact Development Initiative (KDI), has unveiled an Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool to tackle electoral misinformation and hate speech.

The AI platform, known as Naija Elections, would also assist voters during the governorship elections and subsequent elections across the country in terms of proper information.

Speaking at the unveiling of the tool developed by KDI with the support of the United Kingdom (UK) Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) in Abuja, KDI Executive Director, Bukola Idowu, lamented that citizens in Nigeria have been faced with the challenge of misinformation and disinformation in processing electoral data.

While the Edo governorship election is slated for September 21, the Ondo poll will be held on Saturday, November 16, 2024.

Bukola said that the platform contains credible information derived from the electoral guidelines released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the voting manual and the Electoral Act.

He said: “We, at the KDI, came up with this idea of putting all electoral information in a particular place to curb misinformation and disinformation. The platform, Naija Election, seeks to provide the information required in terms of voting education, electoral civic matters, electoral processes and procedures in terms of understanding the electoral justice and constitution.

“We also have the idea of electoral information and data in terms of current affairs, as well as everything we need to know in the past and the rest of the data, so that we can also know where we are coming from.

“So, all the information is put together using AI so that citizens can ask questions, and, at the same time, get responses in a simplified manner, getting them informed and then be able to also fact check misinformation and disinformation.”

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