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Deepfake Technology and Future of Nigeria’s Democracy
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By Joel Popoola
In 2018 Nigeria suffered international embarrassment when President Buhari was forced to deny online claims that he had died and been replaced with a clone.
In 2021 the claims might not be so farfetched.
A week or so ago, some videos showing Hollywood actor, Tom Cruise, performing magic tricks and telling bad jokes went viral around the world.
The videos were quickly proven to be fake – computer-generated images known as deepfakes, which make people appear to say or do things they never said or did, but only after the videos had been watched and shared online by tens of millions of people.
Fake footage of Tom Cruise is harmless enough – at least when all the Top Gun star is doing is cracking jokes – but what if it had been President Buhari? And what if he had been instructing Nigerians to do something dangerous, deadly or destructive?
Would people have obeyed the fake President?
In the United Kingdom, one major broadcaster has highlighted the potential danger of deepfakes by using a deepfake Queen to deliver an alternative Christmas message warning of the dangers of online misinformation. The actor who provided the voice of the Queen was quoted as saying: “As an actress it is thrilling, but it is also terrifying if you consider how this could be used in other contexts.”
As it becomes easier and less detectable for people to manipulate images of their political opponents using deepfake technology, how can we trust anything our leaders say to us?
What hope is there for our democracy if election candidates can convincingly create footage of their opponents saying something damaging, offensive or ridiculous and have that footage shared infinitely before the truth comes out?
The reality of the impact deepfakes could have on our democracy could be a little more subtle – but no less dangerous.
Consider another recent example of an online video being shared around the world.
Perhaps you have seen the story of the young woman leading an outdoor exercise class in Myanmar, who appeared to have inadvertently filmed the military coup happening behind her.
Within days people had “proven” that that film was no less fake than the footage of Tom Cruise.
And they were wrong.
And that is the real deepfake danger. Not just that people start to believe things which are not true, but that they refuse to believe things which are.
In Nigeria, the democratisation of information has allowed the international exposure of official wrongdoing – not least during the #EndSARS protests.
But what if it becomes easy – and believable – for authoritarian regimes to plausibly deny the reality of the most incriminating evidence. The next time official wrong-doing is caught on camera, it is all too easy to see wrongdoers claiming that the footage was manipulated or deepfake. And all too-easy for people to believe them.
If you cannot believe anything, you will end up believing nothing. And where does that leave our democracy?
So what is to be done?
The first step has to be opening verifiable and proven channels of communication between electors and elected.
At the digital democracy campaign I lead, we have created a free smartphone app called Rate Your Leader to do just that.
The app directly connects public figures we have verified are who they say they are to verified voters they serve. This allows a direct person-to-person exchange of information between people who are definitely who they say they are. This allows voters to be sure they can trust the information they are receiving, even if they don’t like it.
Information which comes unfiltered from our political leaders and institutions using apps like Rate Your Leader, and delivered in the spirit of transparency and accountability, carries the watermark of credibility that can act as a firewall against the most convincing of online misinformation.
Rate Your Leader also allows users to rate information they receive from their leaders, and public endorsement of such sources of information in turn creates a virtuous circle of improved trust in those leaders and institutions, and wider democratic engagement.
At this stage, the most insidious and damaging digital misinformation continues to be half-truths innocently spread in the family groupchat. But in the deepfake era that might be about to change – and Nigeria must prepare for a future where seeing no longer is believing.
Joel Popoola is a Nigerian tech entrepreneur, digital democracy campaigner and creator of the Rate Your Leader app. Follow Joel on Twitter @JOPopoola
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INEC Resumes Upload of Osun Election Results after 3Hours Pause
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has resumed the upload of results from the Osun State governorship election to its Result Viewing Portal (IReV), with more than 92.53 per cent of polling unit results now available on the platform.
Tribune Online reports that 3,482 results had been uploaded out of the 3,763 polling units across the state, representing 92.53 per cent of the total results expected on the portal.
Concerns were earlier raised after result uploads on the IReV portal appeared to stall for about three hours.
The delay triggered reactions from several social media users, including Afrobeats star David Adeleke, popularly known as Davido, who questioned the halt in the upload process.
In a post on X, he wrote, “INEC IREV uploads have been stuck for almost 2 hours now. 3292 out of 3763 results submitted and then silence. This is not acceptable Why has the uploading stopped?@inecnigeria
Another X user, @mundus01 tweeted, “Osun IReV uploads have been stalled for over 2 hours. The last result was published at 8:48:08 p.m. The portal is online, but no new results are appearing. @inecnigeria, what is happening? This doesn’t look good.”
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Food for Living: Love What You Do (Pt. 2)
By Henry Ukazu
Dear Destiny Friends,
Last week, we laid the foundation of loving what you do. We discussed loving the topic as it relates to family, career, health, relationship, personal development, purpose and spirituality. Today, we shall be focusing on how loving what you do can be a game changer.
It’s instructive to note that in the dictionary of life; when you love what you do and what you do loves you, you are destined for not only success, but also greatness. One may be wondering how this works. Trust me, it is difficult to succeed in a major, or profession one doesn’t like.
The journey of life can be challenging, stressful and unpredictable. When one is trying to set up a business, there’s bound to be setbacks maybe due to a new policy or meeting up with the requirement, there could challenges of funds; in academics, if one choose a major one likes, despite the associating challenges that may arise, one will still manage to pull through because he that is in him is greater and stronger than he that is in the world.
Also, in relationships and marriage, if one values friendship, they won’t allow their ego to have influence over them. Rather, they will invest time and resources in the relationship. That’s why it’s always good to place values above physical features in a human body when it comes to settling down for marriage because at the end of the day, the human body features can fade away, but values and friendship will not fade away, rather, it will serve as the binding factor that keeps the relationship.
One’s career is not an exception; one can tell who likes their job and one who doesn’t like their job. In workplaces, if one is happy at work, they tend to put in extra hours to get the job done. But when they are not happy with the job, they’ll do the bare minimum just to get through.
Let’s spend a minute to understand how loving what one does can be a game changer in one’s life. Just imagine, one is inspired to write a book, there will be challenges, however, it is the inspiration and determination of the person that will determine if they will finish strong. But if they are inspired by the wrong source, they might finish weak. Here is the gist, it is your desire to succeed that will outweigh your fear of failure.
Again, imagine a scenario where one is starting a business but has no resources and structure behind him. The fact is that if the person loves what he’s doing, it will be hard for the person to give up because their force is internal. I can vividly remember when I was working on my first, second and third book, I had many reasons to quit, but I refused because I love the work I was producing.
Furthermore, when you love what you do, you’ll endeavor to learn something new in addition to spending quality time to improve the work. I say this because rational minds don’t invest time and resources in what they don’t like. There’s a saying, if you want to know a man, give money, women and power. One of them would like to subdue him, but if he’s able to overcome them, he is a man.
This principle of loving what you do cuts across all facets of life whether we are taking care of families, academics, religion purpose, health, career, finance and even spiritual life. For families a man/woman who is intentional in building their family, must love their family and loving their family intends sacrificing for the family.
For health, if one loves their health, they won’t take harmful substances, just because they love their health; they will be intentional in exercising, and in doing so, they must love exercising. For finance, an intentional person must spend time learning about stock, budgeting and investment. These are avenues to show that they have interest in growing their income. Even in spiritual life, when one shows interest in loving God in truth and spirit, God has a way of coming through for them because they have been tested and trusted. This is simply how life works. Even in relationships if one loves their partner, there’s a high probability they would like to invest time and resources into that relationship.
In summary, endeavor to love what you do because there’s a certain level of spiritual strength, blessings and corresponding opportunities that’s associated with success, when one loves what they do. This is basically how life works.
Henry Ukazu writes from New York. He works with the New York City Department of Correction as the Legal Coordinator. He’s the founder of Gloemi. He’s a Transformative Human Capacity and Mindset coach. He is also a public speaker, youth advocate, creative writer and author of Design Your Destiny- Actualizing Your Birthright to Success, Unleash Your Destiny and The Six Pillars of Success . He can be reached via info@gloemi.com
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Osun Govt Drags Fadahunsi to Court over “Kill Accord Members” Threat
The Osun State Government has approached the High Court of Osun State seeking an order compelling security agencies to investigate Senator Francis Adenigba Fadahunsi over his alleged threats against members and supporters of the Accord Party ahead of Saturday’s governorship election.
The suit, marked HOS/M.157/26, was filed on August 12, 2026, at the Osogbo Judicial Division, three days before the August 15 election.
The Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Oluwole Jimi-Bada (SAN), filed the application seeking an Order of Mandamus against the Inspector-General of Police and the Commissioner of Police, Osun State Command. Fadahunsi, who represents Osun East Senatorial District, was listed as the person affected or interested party.
The government said its action followed a video circulating on social media in which Fadahunsi was allegedly captured addressing a political gathering in front of the Owa Obokun’s Palace in Ilesha on August 11.
According to the court documents, the senator allegedly made statements interpreted as calls for violence against members of the Accord Party.
The government said a transcript and translation of the speech showed Fadahunsi allegedly directing supporters to attack Accord members wherever they encountered them and making threats against their families.
The court filings also alleged that the senator instructed his supporters to chase Accord members out of hotels where they were found and made derogatory comments about the party’s yellow caps.
The government further alleged that Fadahunsi threatened that the election would not hold if Accord members resisted the actions of APC supporters.
The Attorney-General is asking the court to compel the police to investigate the video and determine whether the alleged statements constitute criminal offences under applicable laws.
The government is also seeking an order directing the police to preserve, authenticate and conduct a forensic examination of the complete video to establish whether it has been altered or edited.
Other reliefs sought include compelling the police to take preventive measures to protect Accord candidates, members and voters from intimidation or harassment before, during and after the election.
The government also wants the police to ensure that registered voters and Accord supporters are not prevented from accessing hotels or other locations during the electoral period.
It further asked the court to order the respondents to submit a report on compliance with the court’s directives within 48 hours of the orders being granted.
In the supporting affidavit, Nurudeen Kareem, Special Adviser to Governor Ademola Adeleke on Legal Matters, said Accord members had expressed “reasonable and legitimate concerns regarding their safety and security before, during, and after the forthcoming election.”
The government argued that the police have a statutory responsibility under the Police Act 2020 and the 1999 Constitution to prevent crime and maintain public order.
It maintained that waiting until violence occurs before investigating an alleged public threat would undermine the preventive role of law enforcement.
“The Applicant believes that waiting until actual violence, deaths, or injuries occur before investigating an alleged public instruction to kill political opponents would amount to a dereliction of duty,” the government said.
The Attorney-General also clarified that the suit was not asking the court to determine Fadahunsi’s criminal guilt, stressing that such a determination would require a proper criminal trial.
Rather, the government said it was seeking to compel the police to carry out their statutory responsibilities and take appropriate preventive action.
With the election scheduled for Saturday, the government said “time is of the absolute essence”, warning that failure to act on the alleged threats could expose residents to “irreparable harm, loss of life, and widespread civil unrest.”






