Port harcourt: Experts have urged the ECOWAS Parliament to create a strategic agency that would curb the current surge in Artificial Intelligence (AI) generated fake news in West Africa. The media and Information Communication Technology (ICT) experts made the appeal at the end of ECOWAS Parliament's week-long 2025 Second Extraordinary Session on Saturday.
According to News Agency of Nigeria, the experts focused on the sub-theme: 'Disinformation and Misinformation in the Era of AI: Challenges for Governance in the ECOWAS Sub-region'. The event aimed to sensitize the lawmakers, and West Africans alike, on the advent and deployment of AI to counter digital information manipulation, fake news, and hate speech, especially on social media.
Speaking at the panel discussion, the experts decried what they described as the 'invasion of the social media space by some unscrupulous people.' According to them, such elements distort news items or deliberately fabricate falsehoods to deceive and cause harm to individuals and society in West Africa.
'The confusion and destabilization caused by these trends can lead to social upheaval and threaten social cohesion, especially in diverse societies, which if not properly handled can make governance difficult,' they noted. Kierimagha Obomanu, Deputy Director, Rivers Broadcasting Corporation, advised for a strategic agency to monitor disinformation that comes through AI, emphasizing that proper governance processes can fast-track development goals.
Obomanu also advocated for guided regulation that does not impose restrictions denying people basic rights to information, warning against counterproductive measures. He highlighted that the ECOWAS sub-region lacked adequate structures for fact-checking information and called for investments in journalist training for this purpose.
Dr. Christian Odo, an ICT expert, emphasized the need for massive sensitization across the ECOWAS sub-region about the dangers of information manipulation, noting the appeal to divisive issues of ethnicity and religion. Suleiman Gumi advocated for the sanctioning of fake news perpetrators, highlighting how AI-induced malicious content is weaponized for selfish agendas.
Grace Abiante, another IT expert, pointed out that sensitization is key to addressing the fake news menace. She suggested that exposure to AI as a manipulation tool could be curbed by a properly regulated framework. Abiante added that fact-checking, such as using ChatGPT, can assist in mitigating the negative consequences of AI-induced fake news for individuals and society.