With the presidential campaign going down the wire without a clear picture of who will emerge the winner of the presidential election from either of the two leading parties – the All Progressive Congress [APC] and the People Democratic Party [PDP] – the tension within the two political camps have risen to near desperation levels where unorthodox methods are being employed to up the chances of victory for each of the political camps. Information available to 247ureports.com obtained from a consortium of sources within the security agencies in Abuja indicate that the two political parties have engaged the services of highly skilled exparte workers to ‘illegally’ penetrate into the Servers of the Independent National Electoral Commission [INEC] to access the database – in order to decode the smart card reader [SCR].
As a caveat, the State Security Service [SSS] had in the first week of January of 2015 raided a secret office of the APC located at 10 Bola Ajiola Street in Ikeja where loads of evidence were uncovered of APC’s attempt to penetrate the INEC database in order to synthetically alter the voting strengths of several locations/zones – and to inject into the voters register data that will give the APC undue advantage. The SSS claimed it had gotten confessional statements from a participant in the secret APC hacking program. Following a press statement by the SSS of their findings and analysis, the APC’s response failed to deny the accusations levied on them by the SSS spokesperson – rather they condemned the SSS exercise as mere witch hunting.
From the January of 2015 when the SSS took actions against the APC – there appear what seemed to be a lull in the investigation by the secret police. But available information indicates that the political party did not turn and walk away from the lure of having remote access to the INEC database.
A reliable source revealed to 247ureports.com that the APC appears to not to be the only group involved in the Server Hacking Exercise. “The PDP since the advent of the smart card readers have taken up the task themselves”. According to the source, the office of the National Security Advisor [NSA] joined efforts with the PDP to recruit Information Security Specialists who would work to hack into the database of the INEC. “The office of the NSA had brought Indians to see if they can do it, and after about 45days of trials they couldn’t do it, then right now some Isrealis experts are housed somewhere in Abuja and are installing some gadgets to do that for them. I don’t know if they will succeed.” The source who was a one-time contractor to the PDP added that the PDP appeared determined to access the database. “They have put aside large sums on money to achieve it”.
Adding credence to the source is an Information Technologist by the name ‘Deji’ who works at one of the PDP campaign offices located at 14b Samora Micheals Street besides Tony Anenih’s house. According to Deji [a 6feet tall young man – dark in complexion] the PDP had sought the services of the an Information Technologist to aid decode the INEC database – and thus the smart card reader. He stated that he had indicated interest in performing the task for the PDP. According to him, he made a presentation of how the smart card reader could be reconfigured and rendered ‘useless’. He claimed that the PDP turned his offer down after he had already ‘gained partial access’. He added that the PDP had opted for the services of foreign professionals – who he claimed where trained by a Tel Aviv firm by name, FireEye. Deji continued that the smart card readers were comparable to ‘point of sale’ terminal. “If they had mobilized me, I would have decoded it”. Deji was formerly employed by Nuhu Ribadu presidential campaign team.
On the APC side, the effort to hack the INEC database according to our source did not stop with the exposure of the SSS rather it moved underground and changed mode of operation. The operations have been moved out of the country. The source claims the APC has successfully achieved the penetration into the INEC database – “that’s why they appear too eager for the smart card reader to be used”. Although the validity of the claim has yet to be ascertained, a special adviser on security matters for one of the south west governors collaborated the claim that the APC had achieved breakthrough in their quest to crack the INEC database. According to the special advisor, “the APC had engaged IT experts from outside the country supposedly to assist them in their IT systems. I think they came from India.” Another source who claims to be a member of APC in Bauchi State and a former aide to the State Governor attests that he had been informed of the efforts by agents of the party being sought to work on the card reader and the INEC server.
The INEC has however discarded that efforts by the political groups as fruitless. In talking to 247ureports.com the spokesperson for INEC, Kayode Idowu discarded the efforts as mere conspiracy theories. “We hear all manners of conspiracy theories. You can’t stop people from trying but you can guarantee that they will fail”. Similar notion was expressed by members of the Senate. One of the Senators who shared his view, Senator Abaribe [Abia] recalled that “Prof Jega came to the Senate and assured that the INEC servers are hack proof”.
But an IT expert who is an associate at Eli Research [Burt Regan] – a world renowned IT consultancy firm – faulted the assertion by the INEC that their systems were hack proof. In his take, “no such thing as a server that is hacker proof. It can only be made difficult to hack. The INEC server can be easily hacked. The defense department server of the United States was hacked by an individual – what is INEC server?”
The SSS declined to make an official statement when contacted. But they noted that they were “not asleep”. Unofficially, one of the directors indicated that “the activities of both parties are being monitored”.
