ABUJA, Nigeria – Chibuike Ugwoke, a cybersecurity expert, testified on Thursday, June 22, 2023, before the Presidential Election Petition Court in Abuja, alleging that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, uploaded a picture of a book instead of presidential election results on its results viewing portal, IReV.
The allegation came as part of a case filed by Labour Party candidate, Mr. Peter Obi, to nullify the election of President Bola Tinubu.
Ugwoke, who was referred to as an expert witness, said that he was approached by the petitioners on March 10 to analyze the contents uploaded by INEC to its IReV portal after the presidential election which took place on February 25, 2023.
Ugwoke’s testimony included his analysis of INEC’s ICT infrastructure which he termed as “Meta Data,” and stated that this data describes the actual information in the system.
He chose 12 polling units across three states – Bauchi, Anambra, and Rivers – as focal points of his analysis and also made reference to Benue state in his report.
Ugwoke said that his analysis revealed that incorrect data was uploaded to the IReV portal by INEC officials using the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, machines.
In one instance, a picture of a book was uploaded instead of the election results.
He stated, “I interrogated the Amazon Web Services, AWS, that was how I got to know because the information was there in the server.”
While Ugwoke did not interrogate any INEC official or physically inspect any BVAS machines, he said that he based his conclusions on the analysis of the data he obtained.
On the claim by INEC that technical glitches hampered the electronic transmission of results, Ugwoke stated that errors in technology should have been detected at the time of testing an application before its deployment.
During cross-examination, Dr. Ugwoke was unable to confirm whether results from polling units in the states he analyzed were properly collated and stated, “That was not for me to prove, I only presented the facts.”
INEC, President Tinubu, Vice President Kashim Shettima, and the All Progressives Congress are among the respondents in the case.
The court proceedings continue under the supervision of a five-member panel led by Justice Haruna Tsammani.
