Former Independent National Electoral Commission commissioner Festus Okoye has disclosed that INEC’s digital platforms came under several cyberattacks during the 2023 presidential election.
Okoye made the revelation during an interview on Deep Insights, a podcast hosted by Austin Agbonsuremi, while discussing the technical problems that affected the commission’s Result Viewing Portal, IReV.
IReV Faced Technical Problems
Ahead of the 2023 elections, INEC had assured Nigerians that results from polling units would be uploaded to IReV, allowing voters, political parties, candidates and observers to view scanned copies of result sheets.
However, the portal remained inactive for an extended period after voting had ended at several polling units during the presidential election.
The delay generated widespread concern and prompted questions about the reliability of the commission’s electronic result-transmission system.
Okoye said INEC officials initially believed the difficulty would only last a few 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.
‘There Were All Sorts of Cyberattacks’
According to Okoye, INEC eventually prepared a statement explaining the technical problem, although he objected to the language initially used to describe the situation.
“And that was how the issue of glitch came into the equation,” he said.
The former commissioner said the problems were particularly disappointing because INEC had spent considerable time preparing its technology for the election.
He subsequently disclosed that the commission’s online platforms had also been targeted by cyberattacks during the election period.
“I know that there were all sorts of cyberattacks on our platforms during that particular period,” he said.
However, Okoye was careful not to directly link the attacks to the problems experienced by IReV.
He said he could not establish whether the cyberattacks were responsible for the portal’s failure to function properly.
“Whether those cyberattacks influenced what happened at the end of the day, I’m not in a position to say,” Okoye said.
He added that INEC’s deputy director responsible for information and communications technology later appeared before the election petition tribunal to explain what happened.
