DSS Displays Fake Voter Cards By APC

The Department of State Services (DSS) ‎on Wednesday presented to the media cloned Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) allegedly registered by the All Progressive Congress (APC) in readiness to rig the February 2015 elections.

The APC was also said to have clandestinely registered underage voters, babies, infants and even security operatives as well as foreigners as its members at a building in no 10, Bola Ajibola street, Ikeja, Lagos state.

At a press briefing, spokesperson of ‎the DSS, Marilyn Ogar said that all arrested suspects have been charged to court while investigation to get to the root of the matter and bring all culprits to book is still ongoing.

Ogar said: “A building located at No. 10, Bola Ajibola Street, Ikeja, Lagos, was being used for cloning of INEC Permanent Voter Cards (PVC) by some unscrupulous persons with intent to hack into INEC database, corrupt it and replace same with their own data.

“That 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. This is contrary to claims by the APC that the building was accessed illegally.

“On arriving at the building at No. 10, Bola Ajibola Street, Ikeja, Lagos, Officers of this Service found that the building did not have the signpost, banner or flag of any company or political party.

“In the course of investigation, the following discoveries were made:

That one of the hard drives had video of twenty-one (21) hacking tutorials. The tutorial video focused on the following areas:

“‎How to become a hacker and steps to take to avoid detection in the process of hacking web servers;

“Steps and procedures of system hacking, passwords cracking, decrypting, escalating access privileges, and creating backdoors to servers;

“It also explicitly explained how to evade security of databases such as Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS), firewalls, and other measures put in place to deter hackers;

“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; and

“Finally, the video explains how to hack into the systems of media houses, with the aim of broadcasting fake stories or headlines.

“It was also discovered that the APC registered under-aged persons including several infants and babies as members of the party. We know that Article 9.1 of the APC Party Constitution expressly says: “membership of the party shall be open to any citizen of Nigeria who has attained the age of eighteen (18) years and accepts the aims and objectives of the Party…”

“Similarly, the APC registered several security personnel from the Nigerian Army (NA), the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) among others, in their uniforms as members of the party;

“Furthermore the APC had multiple registrations of individuals in multiples of 16, 12, and 10; several foreigners were also registered as its members;

“Also, the APC filled forms without passport photographs, and have books containing names of people with their phone numbers; Equally discovered were several envelopes containing passport photographs of various individuals;

“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 voters register across the country.

‎”Facts are sacred and opinion free. The arrested suspects have since been charged to Court, and at the moment investigation is still ongoing. We shall update the public of further developments.”

The Lagos state chapter of the APC had through a statement by its National Publicity Secretary Joe Igbokwe, challenged the DSS to show Nigerians the copies of the cards it claimed the party was cloning.

He described as “laughable”, the explanation of the DSS spokesperson that the centre was being used to clone permanent voters’ card.