ABUJA, NIGERIA — The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has officially admitted that an internal staff member was responsible for leaking the restricted voter registration data of veteran Nollywood actor and politician, Emeka Ike.
The confirmation validates a massive data privacy breach that erupted after Lere Olayinka, the media aide to Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister Nyesom Wike, published a backend screenshot of the actor’s personal information to settle a political score.
Emeka Ike Fumes, Labels Incident “Political Rascality”
Reacting to the viral exposure of his private records, a furious Emeka Ike slammed the actions of the government official, describing the breach as a direct threat to national security and a blatant insult to all Nigerian citizens.
“It’s the height of political rascality for a government officer to access citizens’ information from the INEC portal,” Ike stated in an official reaction. “It says a lot. I see it as a huge insult to every political party and every Nigerian. He is basically telling us that whoever you are, I can pull your information from anywhere. That kind of rascality needs to be stopped. I have already started taking action on it.”
Legal sources close to the actor indicate that his legal team is preparing a comprehensive petition to the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) and the police cybercrime unit to compel the prosecution of everyone involved in the chain of transmission.
INEC Confirms Insider Breach
Following days of heavy public backlash and demands for a forensic audit of its systems, INEC acknowledged that the screenshot in question originated from its password-protected administrative portal, cvradmin.inecnigeria.org.
The commission clarified that the platform is strictly reserved for authorized staff handling Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) and voter transfers. According to internal investigators, an compromise occurred when an ad-hoc or permanent staff member with valid login credentials illegally extracted the actor’s biographical details and transferred the data to external political actors.
The admission has severely undermined INEC’s previous assurances regarding the absolute security of its central database, raising fresh concerns over how easily partisan actors can weaponize state infrastructure against political opponents.
Escalating Legal Liabilities for Olayinka
With INEC officially confirming that the data was obtained via an illicit insider leak, pressure has intensified on the Department of State Services (DSS) to arrest and question Lere Olayinka.
Cybercrime experts maintain that under the Cybercrimes Act and the Nigeria Data Protection Act (NDPA), possessing, purchasing, or publicly distributing unauthorized data extracted from critical national information infrastructure carries stringent penalties, including prison terms exceeding 10 years.
Civil society organizations have warned that if the federal government fails to make a scapegoat of those involved in this breach, it will completely destroy public confidence in the confidentiality and biometric integrity of the national voter register.
