APC planning to hack INEC data base –DSS

The Department of State Security Service (DSS) yesterday said its investigation following a raid on the All Progressives Congress (APC) office in Lagos showed that the party had planned to hack the database of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).The spokesperson of the DSS, Marlyn Ogar, said this while briefing journalists at the head office […]

The Department of State Security Service (DSS) yesterday said its investigation following a raid on the All Progressives Congress (APC) office in Lagos showed that the party had planned to hack the database of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The spokesperson of the DSS, Marlyn Ogar, said this while briefing journalists at the head office of the Service in Abuja, where she exhibited materials said to have been confiscated from the raid.
The DSS had twice raided the APC office at No. 10, Bola Ajibola Street, Ikeja, Lagos, in November and December last year.
The DSS yesterday said it acted on actionable information that the office was used for cloning of INEC Permanent Voter Cards (PVC) by some unscrupulous persons with intent to hack into INEC database, corrupt it and replace same with their own data.
“We suspect that there was an elaborate and well articulated plan to inflate the party’s membership data as well as hack into INEC’s voter registration database through the creation of party membership forms and cards to match INEC’s voters register across the country,” Ogar said.
She said contrary to the views of APC spokesman that the building was accessed illegally, the DSS first obtained a search warrant as required by law and on reaching the building found that it had no signpost, banner or flag of any political party.
Ogar explained that in the course of investigation, the service discovered a temporary voters card and a permanent voters card and that one of the hard drives recovered from the building contained a video of 21 hacking tutorials and steps to take to avoid detection.
She said it was also discovered that the APC registered under-aged persons including several infants and babies, as well as military and paramilitary personnel as members of the party.
Meanwhile, the APC has dismissed as hogwash the so-called findings of the DSS “following its Gestapo-like raid” on the party’s offices in Lagos.
The party described the DSS ‘findings’ presented to the media as a great disservice to Nigeria and an embarrassment to all intelligence-gathering organisations around the world.
In a statement issued in Abuja yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party also described the timing of the release of the ‘findings’ as a plot orchestrated in collusion with the PDP to distract the APC from its ongoing campaigns for next month’s elections.
“First the DSS and the PDP said the APC was cloning Permanent Voters Cards at the raided office, without a shred of evidence. Now, after a ‘painstaking’ investigation, the DSS has found out that the APC was only planning to inflate its membership data and then hack into INEC’s database. And this is the outcome of its massive, months-long investigations? With these kinds of findings, one can now understand why Boko Haram has continued to strike at times and places of its own choosing without any prior knowledge by our all-powerful DSS,” it added.