Former National Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Festus Okoye, has disclosed that the commission’s digital platforms were targeted by cyberattacks during the 2023 presidential election.
Okoye made the revelation in an interview on Deep Insights, a podcast hosted by Austin Agbonsuremi.
Ahead of the election, INEC had assured Nigerians that results from polling units would be uploaded to its Result Viewing Portal (IReV), allowing voters, political parties, candidates, observers and other stakeholders to view scanned copies of result sheets.
However, the portal remained inactive for a prolonged period during the presidential election, even after voting had ended at several polling units. The delay raised concerns among Nigerians who had expected results to be uploaded as earlier promised.
Okoye explained that INEC officials experienced difficulties while uploading the results and initially expected the problem to be resolved within a few minutes.
“What really happened was that the technology malfunctioned. That is the truth of the matter. For me, technology disappointed us. I said, okay, we need to tell Nigerians that this is the difficulty we are having and that we are trying to fix it,” he said.
He said a press statement was later prepared to explain the situation, but he objected to the technical terminology used in describing what had happened.
“And that was how the issue of glitch came into the equation,” he said.
Okoye said the incident was particularly disappointing because of the extensive preparations that had gone into the election.
There were all sorts of cyberattacks
The former INEC commissioner for voter education said the commission’s platforms faced several cyberattacks during the election period.
“I know that there were all sorts of cyberattacks on our platforms during that particular period,” he said.
However, Okoye stressed that he could not determine whether the attacks had any role in the difficulties experienced by the IReV platform.
“Whether those cyberattacks influenced what happened at the end of the day, I’m not in a position to say,” Okoye said.
He added that INEC’s deputy director responsible for information and communications technology (ICT) later appeared before the election petition tribunal to explain the circumstances surrounding the incident.
Source: Deep Insights
