The Department of State Services (DSS)
has accused the All Progressives
Congress (APC) of cloning the data of the
Independent National Electoral
Commission’s (INEC’s) Permanent Voter
Cards (PVCs) with the aim of smuggling
spurious names into the voter register.
DSS spokesman Marilyn Ogar made the
allegation yesterday during a media
briefing where she explained that items
retrieved from the APC Data Centre on
November 20, 2014, in Lagos, showed
that the party was also planning to hack
into INEC’s database.
But in its reaction, 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, saying the
findings presented to the media by the
agency yesterday was a great disservice
to Nigeria and an embarrassment to all
intelligence gathering organisations
around the world.
Ogar, who said a search warrant was
obtained before the raid, contrary to the
allegation that the service invaded the
party’s premises unauthorized, disclosed
that materials and documents confiscated
from the office revealed that the party
had officers and men of the various
security agencies as registered party
members.
The service also said it discovered that
the APC contravened Article 9.1 of its
constitution by registering underage
persons, including several infants and
babies, as members of the party.
Similarly, she said, the APC registered
several security personnel from the
Nigerian Army, the Nigeria Police Force,
Nigeria Customs Service, Nigerian
Security and Civil Defence Corps and
Federal Road Safety Corps, among others,
in their uniforms as members of the
party.
According to her, a DSS operative whose
picture was found in the APC database,
but with a wrong name, is being
investigated and would be sanctioned if
he is found to have voluntarily registered
with the party. She also disclosed that all
the other security agencies had been
contacted on the issue.
Ogar restated that the service raided the
APC office based on intelligence it
received that a building was being used
for cloning INEC’s PVCs by some
unscrupulous persons with aim of hacking
into INEC database, corrupt it and replace
same with their own data, and revealed
that all the arrested suspects had been
granted bail by the courts.
“Upon receiving the said report, the
Service immediately took appropriate
steps to investigate same by first seeking
and obtaining a search warrant as
required by law. The DSS operatives
found that the building did not have any
signpost, banner or flag of any company
or political party,” Ogar said.
The DSS spokeswoman stated that during
investigation, the service recovered
temporary voter cards, permanent voter
cards (PVCs), noting that one of the hard
drives recovered from the building
contained a video of 21 hacking tutorials.
“The video outlined ways to identify
vulnerabilities in systems and how to
surreptitiously drop a USB flash drive in a
target establishment, which when plugged
into any computer transmits malicious
codes enough to gain access into and
compromise the entire system of the
target organization.
“Finally, the video explains how to hack
into the systems of media houses, with
the aim of broadcasting fake stories or
headlines. From the foregoing, 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 voter
register across the country.
“Furthermore, the APC had multiple
registrations of individuals in multiples of
16, 12, and 10. Several foreigners were
also registered as its members, as well as
underage children,” Ogar stated.
But in a statement issued in Abuja
yesterday by the APC national publicity
secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party
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.
It described the DSS allegation as
“disingenuous, flimsy, premeditated,
partisan and an irritant.”
The APC spokesman said: ‘’First the DSS
and the PDP said the APC was cloning
Permanent Voter 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?
‘’This would have been funny if it were
not from a primary domestic intelligence
agency saddled with a great
responsibility. Can this wishy-washy
report stand any serious scrutiny?
Can
any serious intelligence gathering agency
anywhere else in the world take this
report seriously? 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.
‘’Even the presentation of the report by a
poorly-trained and highly-politicized
spokesperson of the DSS worsened the
so-called findings. Why would the
spokesperson of a national agency sound
like a megaphone for the ruling party,
freely castigating the opposition
spokesman and ‘’a number of uninformed
members of the public’’? Why does she
have to go personal in presenting a report
that supposedly is in the national
interest?
‘’We have always warned that our
democracy is in clear and present danger,
not just from desperate politicians, but
also from institutions of state that have
compromised in their roles and resorted to
crass lawlessness. The DSS’ ‘findings’
today have given us another reason to
repeat this warning.
‘’While we are willing to meet the DSS in
court, we can confidently say that the
‘confessions’ extracted from the arrested
persons, after they were subjected to
incredible acts of torture, cannot even
stand in any court of law.”
The party recalled that in its statement of
December 5, 2014, it accused the DSS of
resorting to the use of torture to obtain
forced confessions from those who were
arrested during the first raid on the
party’s Data Centre in Ikeja.
‘’In that statement, we called the action
of the DSS a contravention of the UN
Convention against Torture to which
Nigeria is a signatory, and a violation of
the citizens’ fundamental human rights.
‘’We also said the DSS shackled the
hands and legs of those arrested and
blindfolded them while they were being
taken to Abuja. The arrested persons
remained in chains even at the dark
detention cell where they were made to
sleep on the bare floor for the 10 days
they were detained illegally.
‘’Guns were pointed at their heads by DSS
personnel who threatened to shoot them,
while a pregnant woman among those
who were arrested was denied access to
her drugs even when she started bleeding
due to the torture to which she was
subjected by the DSS.
“Now the DSS has confirmed what we
said in that press statement. Is anyone
still surprised at the action of countries
that are distancing themselves from
Nigeria over human rights violations?’’ it
queried.
APC said the impending release of the
‘great findings’ by the DSS after its
‘world-class’ investigations must have
been the reason why the agency recently
threatened that it would arrest any
politician who makes inciting comments.
‘’Apparently the DSS needed to silence all
so that no one will dare criticize its earth-
shaking ‘findings,’” it added.
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