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Presidential Poll: INEC Uploaded Picture Of A Book Instead Of Results – Witness

Published

2 years ago

June 23, 2023

Editor

A cyber security expert, Dr. Chibuike Ugwoke, on Thursday, alleged that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, uploaded the picture of a book on its results viewing portal, IReV, instead of results of the presidential election that held on February 25.

Ugwoke, testified before the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, sitting in Abuja, as the eight witness, PW-8, in the case the candidate of Labour Party, LP, Mr. Peter Obi, filed to nullify President Bola Tinubu’s election.

Though the PW-8, who was described as an expert witness, commenced his evidence on Wednesday, however, the court deferred his cross-examination after the Respondents complained that they needed time to study his statement on oath.

Consequently, at the resumed proceedings on Thursday, he was recalled to the witness box, even as all the Respondents took turns to grill him before the Justice Haruna Tsammani-led five-member panel of the court.

Aside from INEC, other Respondents in the matter, are; President Tinubu, Vice President Kashim Shettima and the All Progressives Congress, APC.

Answering questions under cross-examination, Dr. Ugwoke, said he conducted analysis on INEC’s ICT infrastructure which he termed as “Meta Data”.

He told the court that the Meta Data, described the actual information in the system.

The witness said he used 12 polling units in three states- Bauchi, Anambra and Rivers state- as focal points of his analysis, adding that he equally made reference to Benue state in his report that was tendered before the court.

He told the court that the petitioners approached him on March 10 to analyse what INEC uploaded to its IReV portal after the presidential election.

“Though I initially sent a preliminary report which was more like an overview, around March 1, I later wrote an elaborate report in the middle of May,” he stated.

The witness, however, admitted that he read Obi’s petition as well as replies by the Respondents, before he wrote his final report that was tendered in evidence.

“I read the replies some time in the middle of my work, that was before the final report was made.”

He told the court that his analysis revealed that INEC officials made incorrect inputs into the IReV portal, using the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, machines.

Asked if he knew the identities of those that made the incorrect inputs, the witness, said: “I don’t know who made the uploads, but it was from the BVAS and the number is there.”

He said though he did not in the course of his assignment, interrogate any INEC official, “but I interrogated the INEC manual.”

Asked if he contacted the Labour Party to give him what should have been the actual results from the polling units, the witness, said: “No my lords, I did not”.

“In one of the instances, the picture of a book was uploaded instead of election results

“I interrogated the Amazon Web Services, AWS, that was how I got to know because the information was there in the server,” he insisted.

He told the court that out of 176, 846 polling units in the country, he chose only 12 of them based “on my proof of consent.”

On claim by INEC that technical glitches hampered the electronic transmission of results, the witness, told the court that such errors in technology could be detected at the time of testing of an application before its deployment.

He said: “Errors arise at the time of testing, but after deployment, the probability for an error to arise may be very negligible. However, it is not impossible for error to arise after deployment.

“I used three states to show that it is possible to display the meta data in the IReV portal.

“I proved that there were errors and I did not have to examine the Forms EC8As, physically, to reach my conclusion.”

Asked if he could tell that results from polling units in the states he analysed, were properly collated, the witness, said: “That was not for me to prove, I only presented the facts.”

He told the court that all he did was from his computer, adding that he was familiar with the AWS, which INEC engaged for the general elections.

“AWS security is a shared responsibility model between the company and a client.

“With respect to security, there are three components; confidentiality, integrity and availability of data.

“Availability simply means that the data would not shut down and will be readily accessible when needed. That aspect is the responsibility of the AWS.”

Asked if there was anything about electronic collating system in a press statement that INEC issued on the use of BVAS, which was cited in his report, the witness, said: “Yes, it was inferred in the last paragraph.”

He went ahead and read the last paragraph of the said press release, where INEC, assured that results of the elections would be electronically transmitted to its IReV portal, in real time.

The witness maintained that by the statement, INEC, inferred that the results would equally be electronically collated.

Nevertheless, Dr. Ugwoke admitted that he did not physically inspect any of the BVAS machines, neither did he interview Mr. Festus Okoye, the INEC National Commissioner that signed the said press statement.

Asked if he was aware that PDP won election in one of the polling units in Bauchi state which he analysed, the witness, said he was not aware.

Asked if he was aware that in one of the polling units in Anambra state, the LP, won with 127 votes, while APC scored zero vote, the witness, said he was not also aware.

“I am not aware. I am only an expert in the subject matter for which I was engaged. I am not biased”, he told the court, adding that he attached links in his report.

Asked to confirm that the results he referenced in his report were not the original copies from INEC, the witness, said: “They are original results from the IReV portal and they are still there.”

However, he said he neither met nor interviewed any official of the electoral body, before the report was written.

More so, the witness, told the court that International Organization for Standardization, ISO, certification, was a statutory requirement for organisations like the INEC under the National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA, Act.

Meanwhile, shortly after Dr. Ugwoke was discharged by the court, another witness, Mr. Emmanuel Edet, mounted the box as the eleventh witness in the matter.

Edet, who is a legal practitioner and head of legal services at NITDA, said he was subpoenaed to appear before the court.

The witness told the court that there was no correspondence between the agency and INEC with respect to ICT technology that was deployed for the 2023 general elections.

He said there was equally no certificate of clearance from the agency that gave approval to INEC for such ICT deployment.

“We don’t have such documents in our office, to the best of my knowledge,” the witness added, saying it was the reason why he did not produce them before the court as requested in the subpoena.

Meanwhile, INEC, through the head of its legal team, Mr. Abubakar Mahmoud, SAN, said it was opposed to the evidence of the witness.

Mahmoud, SAN, argued that evidence of the witness did not comply with the law as he was not listed by the petitioners, ab-initio.

Likewise, lead counsel to President Tinubu, Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, contended that paragraph 41(3) of the First Schedule to the Electoral Act, prohibited such witness from entering the box to testify in the matter.

However, unlike the INEC, both President Tinubu’s lawyer and that of the APC, Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, took turns to cross-examine the witness.

Answering questions from Chief Olanipekun, SAN, the witness, said the subpoena was served on him personally, though he informed the Director-General of the agency, who gave him the nod to appear before the court.

The witness further admitted that the Act that established NITDA, does not contain any regulation on cyber security or ISO standards, adding that INEC was not mentioned in any portion of the said Act.

While being cross-examined by counsel to the APC, Fagbemi, SAN, the witness, said he was aware that the Minister of Communication & Digital Economy, had in the wake of the presidential election, disclosed that over 16millio attempts were made to hack INEC’s ICT infrastructure.

The witness said he was equally aware that INEC, being an independent body, did not need authority of any agency to conduct elections.

After he was discharged by the court, the petitioners called their 12th witness, Mr. Tanko Yunusa, who told the court that he was a member of LP’s election Situation Room.

Mr. Yanusa identified a bundle containing several letters the party wrote to INEC.

Besides, he told the court that over 18, 088 results the Commission uploaded to its IReV portal, were blurred.

The Justice Tsammani-led panel adjourned further hearing on the matter till Friday to enable the Respondents to cross-examine the witness.

VANGUARD

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Israel-Iran War: Stranded Nigerians Cry For Help From Underground Shelters

Published

7 hours ago

June 21, 2025

Editor

Nigerians caught in the hostilities between Israel and Iran have called for help from underground shelters amid heavy exchange of missiles between the two countries.

Those who spoke to Saturday PUNCH slammed the Nigerian government for not doing enough, adding that other countries had started evacuating their citizens.

Meanwhile, the Federal Government said it was awaiting border clearance to rescue over 1,000 Nigerians in the warring countries.

Rising casualties

According to reports, no fewer than 264 people, including 70 women and children, have died in the two countries since the war started.

The war began last Friday when Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, with guided missiles and air raids pounding suspected Iranian nuclear and military sites, including air-defence installations, as well as residential areas in eastern Tehran, notably the Shahrak-e-Mahallati neighbourhood, home to senior IRGC commanders, and targets in Tabriz and other cities.

High-ranking Iranian military figures, including General Mohammad Bagheri and IRGC commander Hossein Salami, were among those killed in the Israeli offensive.

In a statement, Tehran described the strikes from Israel as “the most direct act of war” in decades of covert hostilities.

In a retaliatory response on June 13, 2025, Iran launched a large-scale missile barrage, firing over 100 ballistic missiles at Israeli cities, including Tel Aviv, where the Nigerian embassy is located.

Checks by The PUNCH revealed that most Nigerians living in Israel are based in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Sources confirmed that nearly all economic, social, and religious activities have been suspended in major Israeli cities.

Nigerians recount ordeal

In separate interviews with our correspondents, some Nigerians living in major Israeli cities recounted their ordeals.

A Nigerian in Tel Aviv, Ekene Abaka, said since the onslaught began, members of the Nigerian community in the city had joined other foreigners to take cover in underground shelters provided by the Israeli military, pending an opportunity to escape the country.

“We are in an Israeli bomb shelter and I can’t answer calls right now,” Abaka said in a hasty Facebook message to The PUNCH.

A software engineer living in Jerusalem, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Nigerians in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem had been scrambling for the past few days since the face-off between the two nations started.

The source, who also claimed to be speaking from a bomb shelter, said though many Israelis had died, no casualties had been recorded among Nigerians so far.

He, however, lamented that the Nigerian embassy had closed all official and diplomatic activities without supporting distressed Nigerians in the country.

“Most of the areas where Nigerians live in Israel are in Tel Aviv. As a matter of fact, that is the main area where most of the missiles are going. I live in Jerusalem.

“There are about three families in Jerusalem from Nigeria, but the majority of Nigerians live in Tel Aviv. We are on the run.

“The Nigerian embassy is situated in Tel Aviv. It has shut down. It’s not doing anything about the issue at the moment. We ran into a bomb shelter to protect ourselves from missiles coming from Iran,” he added.

Meanwhile, in a video shared on Tuesday by Travels Vlog, a Facebook page documenting the daily experiences of Nigerians in Israel and other parts of the Middle East, some Nigerians were seen scrambling into a bomb shelter after the Israeli government sounded the security alarm, warning of incoming Iranian missiles.

“Everybody is running helter-skelter now. I didn’t grab my water. Oh! Those are the missiles there. They have fallen now,” one of them cried out in fear.

But as they approached one of the shelters, they found it locked.

“Oh! It’s closed. Why did they lock this place? Let’s go, there is another one over there. We can’t stay here. This place is not safe,” another voice urged as the group rushed off in search of an open shelter under the night sky.

When they finally reached a covered spot, they sat on the ground, visibly shaken, waiting as the blaring alarm slowly faded and the missiles vanished from sight.

The Travels Vlog host, identified as one Solomon, explained in a live video on Wednesday that people were informed about incoming Iranian missiles through a text message from the government.

“There are missiles coming in, but 10 minutes before they hit, the Israeli government detects them and sends us a direct message to immediately leave our homes and run to the shelter. A few minutes afterwards, the security siren starts blaring, and that’s when panic sets in,” he said.

Countries move to evacuate citizens

The situation in the Middle East has prompted governments around the world to evacuate their nationals from both Iran and Israel, where airspace closures and missile fire have made civilian travel dangerous or impossible.

No fewer than 12 countries, including the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany, Greece, and Bulgaria, have contacted their citizens in the warring nations and repatriated hundreds by air, sea, and road.

Many evacuees crossed land borders on foot before boarding repatriation flights from neighbouring countries.

Agence France-Presse reported on Thursday that the Czech Republic and Slovakia flew home 181 people on government planes, while Greece returned home 105 of its citizens plus a number of foreign nationals via Egypt.

The United States announced plans on Wednesday to evacuate Americans by air and sea, while China evacuated more than 1,600 citizens from Iran and several hundred more from Israel.

The Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a statement issued on Tuesday night, revealed that the Nigerian Embassies in Israel and Tehran (Iran) were actively reaching out to affected citizens and coordinating efforts to ensure their safe return.

However, as of Thursday night, the Federal Government had yet to evacuate any Nigerian trapped in the countries.

A woman, identified as Hope Omobeauty, during Solomon’s Vlog podcast, said some of her people had been trying to leave Israel but had found no way.

“I have people in Israel who are trying to leave, but there is no way,” she said.

Collapse of businesses

The Israeli government has shut down all activities until at least Sunday at 8pm, further worsening conditions for Nigerians in the country.

Israel announced that all educational institutions, including kindergartens, daycare centres, schools, special education programmes, summer camps, youth organisations, and higher education facilities, had been closed.

Speaking about this, the engineer told The PUNCH that the closures had negatively affected the livelihoods of Nigerians.

He lamented the “indifference and insensitivity” of the Nigerian embassy to their predicament.

“In Israel, rent is paid every month. At workplaces, you’re paid per hour. But all business activities have been shut down, so there is no income for anyone at the moment. We are scared because we don’t even know how we will pay our next rent or feed our children,” he said.

“There is an announcement that everything will reopen on Sunday, schools, markets, and places of worship, but it is not guaranteed. It all depends on how Iran continues the war, whether they will carry on with the bombardment or not. We don’t sleep at night because that’s when the missiles fall.

“What the officials at the Nigerian embassy do is perform their formal obligations, grant visas and handle diplomatic or travel assignments. They don’t engage in the welfare of Nigerians. If anything happens, you are on your own. They don’t do anything to help Nigerian citizens here.”

FG awaits border clearance

Meanwhile, nearly 1,000 Nigerians stranded in Iran have remained in limbo, as the Federal Government awaits final border clearance from Armenia to begin their evacuation.

According to the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kimiebi Ebienfa, the Nigerian Embassy in Tehran has completed logistical arrangements to move citizens to Armenia, the nearest border country, where they are to be airlifted home from the capital, Yerevan.

He told The PUNCH that embassy officials were in close talks with Armenian authorities to finalise the movement of evacuees across the Iran-Armenia border.

While bus transport has been secured, approval from Armenia to allow Nigerians to cross the border is still pending.

“The Charge d’Affaires of the Embassy met officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Armenia, which is the nearest border, to discuss modalities of moving stranded Nigerians via buses to Yerevan, while waiting to be airlifted to Nigeria.

“The Embassy has also advised Nigerians to stay away from demonstrations, remain in safe areas, and stay glued to their phones for evacuation messages once arrangements are concluded.

“At the moment, the Embassy has concluded arrangements with bus companies to hire buses that will convey us all to the transit country, Yerevan, Armenia. However, we are awaiting permission from the transit country before moving from locations already earmarked for evacuation,” Ebienfa said.

He said to prevent complications at the crossing, the embassy was coordinating with Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs by submitting updated lists of evacuees, including personal details.

“This is to ensure a smooth passage through the border and avoid any bottlenecks.

“All hands are on deck to get permission, including for transit and final airlifting to Abuja from Yerevan, Armenia,” he stated.

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Egypt, South Africa Universities Beat Nigeria At Global QS Rankings

Published

7 hours ago

June 21, 2025

Editor

For the third year in a row, no Nigerian university has made it into the top 1,000 of the Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings, with the 2026 edition released on June 19, 2025, once again excluding all 297 Nigerian universities from the global elite list.

Only three Nigerian institutions were ranked at all, University of Ibadan, University of Lagos, and Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.

UI and UNILAG were ranked in the 1,001–1,200 band for both the 2025 and 2026 editions, while ABU appeared for the first time in the 1,201–1,400 range.

The QS World University Rankings are compiled annually by Quacquarelli Symonds and assess institutions based on eight key performance indicators: academic reputation, employer reputation, faculty/student ratio, citations per faculty, international faculty ratio, international student ratio, international research network, employment outcomes, and sustainability.

Despite longstanding reputations and a high number of graduates annually, Nigerian universities continue to underperform in areas such as research output, international collaboration, and employability metrics, factors that heavily influence global rankings.

Across Africa, Egypt led the continent with 20 universities on the 2026 list, followed by South Africa with 11, and Tunisia with four.

Ghana and Morocco each had two universities listed, while Kenya, Libya, Sudan, Uganda, and Ethiopia had one each.

Notably, the only African universities to break into the top 300 are from South Africa with University of Cape Town ranking 150th and University of Witwatersrand ranking 291st

QS World University Rankings 2026: Global Top 10

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology – United States
2. Imperial College London – United Kingdom
3. Stanford University – United States
4. University of Oxford – United Kingdom
5. Harvard University – United States
6. University of Cambridge – United Kingdom
7. ETH Zurich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology – Switzerland
8. National University of Singapore – Singapore
9. University College London – United Kingdom
10. California Institute of Technology – United States

These institutions not only lead in research output and faculty reputation but also boast substantial international partnerships and high graduate employability scores.

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Iran Nabs 22 Suspected Israeli Spies Amidst Escalating Conflict

Published

7 hours ago

June 21, 2025

Editor

Police in Iran’s Qom province said Saturday that 22 people “linked to Israeli spy services” had been arrested since June 13, Fars news agency reported.

“22 people were identified and arrested on charges of being linked to the Zionist regime’s spy services, disturbing public opinion and supporting the criminal regime,” the agency said, citing the head of police intelligence in Iran’s Qom province.

It came after Iranian police announced the arrest on Thursday of 24 people accused of spying for Israel and of seeking to tarnish the country’s image, according to a statement carried by Tasnim news agency.

A European national was also arrested for spying, Tasnim reported on Friday, without giving their nationality or the date of the arrest.

Anambra CP seeks community cooperation to nab Oko attack hoodlums
Iran regularly announces arrests of suspected spies. Several have been executed in recent weeks.

Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights said at least 223 people have been arrested nationwide on charges related to collaboration with Israel, cautioning that the actual figure was likely higher.

AFP