The All Progressives Congress, APC, has described as hogwash claims by the Department of State Services (DSS) that it uncovered plans by the party to hack into the database of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
In a statement issued in Abuja on Wednesday by its National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed, the party said the ‘findings’ presented to the media by the agency on Wednesday is a great disservice to Nigeria and an embarrassment to all intelligence-gathering organizations around the world, Premium Times reports.
It described as disingenuous, flimsy, premeditated, partisan and an irritant the conclusion that the APC had planned to hack into INEC’s voter registration database as well as inflate member’s registration.
The statement reads: “First the DSS and the PDP said the APC was cloning Permanent Voters 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 kind 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.”
The party said it was willing to meet the DSS in court as the ‘confessions’ extracted from the arrested persons cannot stand in any court of law.
The APC accused the DSS of using torture to get a confession out of the arrested persons.
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 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’,” the party said.
It would be recalled that in December 2014, the State Security Service (SSS) had carried out a raid on the APC data center in Lagos yesterday night.
