By Our Correspondent<\/p>\n
The Nigeria Representative of Mass Media LLC, Texas, Ms. Adeola Ademokaya, has said Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now a powerful tool to strengthen legislative budget oversight and parliamentary journalism, but warned that AI must never replace human judgment and verification.<\/p>\n
Ms. Ademokaya, who is also Consultant and Moderator for the Senate Press Corps Capacity-Building Workshop, made the presentation on Monday at National Assembly Complex, Abuja.<\/p>\n
Her paper was titled: *\u201cLeveraging Artificial Intelligence for Effective Legislative Budget Oversight and Parliamentary Journalism: Opportunities, Ethics and Responsible Use.\u201d*<\/p>\n
The workshop, organized by the Senate Press Corps under Chief Taiye Odewale alias Baba T., had as theme: *\u201cLeveraging Legislative Oversight and Media Collaboration to Safeguard the National Budget from Unlawful Insertions.\u201d*<\/p>\n
Ademokaya began by reminding journalists that the national budget is not a mere financial document but a public trust.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe national budget is a public trust document. It decides whether a road in Kaduna will be constructed, whether a school in Ekiti will get furniture, whether a primary health centre in Bayelsa will get drugs, whether security agencies will get equipment, whether young Nigerians will get jobs, and whether critical infrastructure will be delivered,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we scrutinise the budget, we are not chasing figures. We are defending human lives and national future.\u201d<\/p>\n
The media consultant said the traditional method of manually combing through thousands of pages of budget documents is no longer sustainable, given the size and complexity of Nigeria’s N68.32 trillion 2026 budget.<\/p>\n
According to her, AI can help journalists and legislative aides in six practical ways:<\/p>\n
*1. Speedy Analysis:* AI can analyse lengthy budget documents running into thousands of pages within minutes.<\/p>\n
*2. Version Comparison:* It can compare Executive proposal, committee versions and final appropriation to answer: \u201cWhat changed, why and who added what?\u201d<\/p>\n
*3. Red Flag Detection:* It can identify vague project descriptions like \u201cyouth empowerment,\u201d \u201cstrategic intervention,\u201d unusual lump sums, inflated figures and possible duplication across MDAs.<\/p>\n
*4. Question Generation:* It can generate smart, evidence-based questions for budget defence sessions with Ministers and heads of MDAs.<\/p>\n
*5. Simplification:* It can break down complex budget jargon into simple language for radio, television, newspaper and social media audiences.<\/p>\n
*6. Tracking and Monitoring:* It can help track budget releases, procurement and project implementation from allocation to impact.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith AI, you can ask: Show me all projects without location, show me projects duplicated in 2024, 2025 and 2026, show me MDAs with 300% increase. AI will give you answers in seconds that would have taken weeks manually,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n
However, Ms. Ademokaya issued a strong ethical caution, stressing that AI is an assistant, not the final authority.<\/p>\n
\u201cAI can hallucinate. It can generate false figures, false citations and false conclusions if not guided properly. It is an assistant, not the newsroom boss,\u201d she warned.<\/p>\n
\u201cJournalists must still verify with official documents – the Appropriation Act, audited reports, BPP procurement records, and Budget Office releases. You must seek responses from relevant authorities and exercise editorial judgment before publication.\u201d<\/p>\n
She warned about the rising danger of fabricated documents, doctored voices and AI-generated images circulating before authentic documents can be verified.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this age, a photoshopped budget page can go viral before the Budget Office releases the original. A cloned voice can sound more convincing than the real witness. That is why responsible gatekeeping is more valuable than ever,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She summed up her presentation with a simple five-step rule for parliamentary journalists:<\/p>\n
*Read* the whole document, not just the summary.
\n*Question* what does not add up.
\n*Verify* with official sources and data.
\n*Seek Clarification* from MDAs, committees and experts.
\n*Report Responsibly* – plainly, fairly and in public interest.<\/p>\n
\u201cAI can make journalists faster, sharper and more effective, but human judgment remains central to credible journalism. AI can tell you there is a red flag, but only a journalist on the ground can confirm whether the clinic exists in the village or not,\u201d Ademokaya said.<\/p>\n
She proposed practical next steps for the Senate Press Corps, including creation of a *Senate Press Corps AI-Assisted Budget Desk*, training in prompt engineering for budget analysis, and building a public database of major projects for continuous tracking.<\/p>\n
The presentation drew applause from participants, with many journalists describing AI-assisted budget scrutiny as the future of accountability reporting in Nigeria.<\/p>\n
The workshop also featured presentations by Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Senator Atiku Bagudu, CISLAC, BudgIT and Eagle Times publisher, and goodwill messages by Senate President Godswill Akpabio represented by Senator Yemi Adaramodu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Our Correspondent The Nigeria Representative of Mass Media LLC, Texas, Ms. Adeola Ademokaya, has said Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now a powerful tool to strengthen legislative budget oversight and parliamentary journalism, but warned that AI must never replace human judgment and verification. Ms. Ademokaya, who is also Consultant and Moderator for the Senate Press […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18050,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18071"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18072,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18071\/revisions\/18072"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}