Group raises alarm over INEC silence on server hacking

The Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) has raised alarm over the continued silence of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) following purported claim by People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to have had access to its backend servers as worrisome and frightening.

In a statement, signed by Niyi Akinsiju and Cassidy Madueke, its Coordinator and Secretary respectively, the group stated that “the claim by the PDP that it had gained illegal access to the servers of INEC through the assistance of some INEC officials was too grave a criminal confession for the electoral Commission to keep mum, as if it had consented to such a notorious allegation of breach@.

The group further said: “This is most frightening. That INEC is not alarmed or bothered by such blatant claim by the PDP to have procured the hacking of its systems – whether it is false or not- is most worrisome. We would have expected INEC to swing into clearing the air immediately and distancing itself from such a criminal conduct. But INEC has kept a deafening silence,” the statement read.

INEC’s silence on this confession of criminality against it is not golden. It is suspicious and carries a weight of taint that must be called out.

“It can be likened to a scenario where a thief says he has robbed a bank and the bank remains silent on the confession of robbery against it, whether its safes and moneys are intact or not. Silence is very weighty in any such instance,” the statement continued.

BMO said that it knew that the claim by the PDP that it was in possession of results fraudulently fetched from the INEC servers was “a hoax and only an exhibition of the innate fraudulent character of the PDP. For instance, according to the group, the so-called results did not tally with reality, with fundamental errors such as the absence of votes of other political parties that participated during the election. Still, we believe that INEC ought not to be silent in the face of such wild allegations.

“The very character of the PDP is one of fraud, dishonesty and malfeasance; it is not out of its character to have made moves to procure the hacking into the INEC servers by some of the Commission’s staff. Its Freudian slip of this admission of the stupid attempt, however unsuccessful, must be dealt with and addressed with all sense of seriousness. This, INEC has failed to do.”

The group stated that this most recent claim by the PDP to have colluded with INEC staff to have access to INEC’s back-end servers raises serious posers as to an unholy romance between INEC and the PDP.