A former National Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Festus Okoye, has disclosed that the commission’s digital platforms came under cyberattack during the 2023 presidential election.
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Okoye made the disclosure in an interview on Deep Insights, a podcast hosted by Austin Agbonsuremi.
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Ahead of the 2023 general election, INEC had assured Nigerians that results from polling units would be uploaded in real time to its Result Viewing Portal (IReV), an online platform designed to allow voters, political parties, candidates, observers and other stakeholders to view scanned copies of result sheets.
However, the portal remained inactive for an extended period during the presidential poll, even after voting had concluded at many polling units, a development that triggered widespread concern among Nigerians and opposition parties at the time.
According to Okoye, INEC officials ran into difficulties uploading results on election day and initially believed the problem would be resolved within 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 explained that a press statement was subsequently drafted to account for the situation, but that he had objected to the technical language used to describe the malfunction.
“And that was how the issue of glitch came into the equation,” he said.
Okoye added that the outcome was particularly disappointing given the extensive preparations the commission had made ahead of the election.
‘There were all sorts of cyberattacks’
The former INEC national commissioner for voter education said the commission’s platforms were subjected to multiple cyberattacks during the election period.
“I know that there were all sorts of cyberattacks on our platforms during that particular period,” he said.
He clarified, however, that he could not conclusively establish whether the cyberattacks were responsible for the problems experienced with IReV.
“Whether those cyberattacks influenced what happened at the end of the day, I’m not in a position to say,” Okoye said.
He noted that INEC’s deputy director in charge of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) later appeared before the election petition tribunal to explain the incident.
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