…Urges that election disputes should be resolved before swearing in
The Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) has called for critical reforms to the process of appointing the Chairman, National Commissioners and Resident Electoral Commissioners of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), as well as State Electoral Commissioners.
The NGE also demanded the government to address structural concerns in the electoral system, including limitations on ordinary voters challenging election results and the absence of a constitutional framework for independent candidacy.
The body of editors particularly expressed concern over public perceptions that judicial interventions in some electoral disputes now displace results recorded at the ballot box.
While stressing the need to respect judicial independence, the NGE demanded for electoral adjudication to be timely, transparent, predictable and impartial, with genuine electoral irregularities properly addressed.
The NGE further called for constitutional and electoral reforms that would require a presidential candidate to secure at least 50 per cent of votes cast to win an election, with a run-off where no candidate meets the threshold.
It also demanded that electoral disputes should be resolved before the swearing in of declared winners to strengthen public confidence in Nigeria’s electoral system.
These were contained in a communiqué issued at the end of the 22nd All Nigeria Editors Conference (ANEC 2026), held in Enugu from September 24 to 26 with the theme; “The Ballot, the Media and the Task of Keeping Democracy Alive,” which warned that fabricated election results, cloned voices of public officials, forged documents, manipulated result sheets and fake reports attributed to established media organisations could be produced and distributed rapidly.
The conference which brought together more than 500 editors, publishers and senior media practitioners, alongside political, traditional, religious, academic, regulatory and development-sector stakeholders, identified artificial intelligence, deepfakes, voice cloning and automated networks as growing threats to electoral information ahead of the 2027 general elections.
The NGE noted that the danger extends beyond individual falsehoods to the erosion of public trust when citizens can no longer distinguish authentic information from fabricated content.
The Guild therefore urged newsrooms to institutionalise fact-checking and verification systems and integrate digital verification, deepfake detection and forensic tools into their editorial workflows.
The conference reaffirmed the Nigerian Media Code of Election Coverage (Revised 2022), and urged media organisations to adopt the code and train journalists ahead of the 2027 elections.
On election security, the NGE tasked security agencies and political actors to protect journalists covering elections, warning that the electoral process could not be fully transparent where journalists were threatened, attacked or obstructed.
The NGE specifically called on INEC to strengthen cybersecurity and electoral technology partnerships, ensure the technical integrity of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and safeguard the commission’s institutional independence.
The Guild endorsed the principle, “Inform, Don’t Amplify,” and challenged journalists to report attacks accurately while avoiding the unnecessary reproduction of terrorist propaganda, recruitment messages and graphic materials.
The NGE urged the media to remain “pro-Nigeria, pro-Ballot and pro-People,” rather than align with any political party and called for evidence-based journalism that scrutinises governments and political parties while fairly reporting verified achievements and developments.
