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. From Vanguard.