Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has revealed that its result viewing (IReV) portal was attacked severally by hackers during the 2022 governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun states but were not successful.

This revelation is coming on the heels of findings by YIAGA that observe that the conduct of the two elections show some disparities in the electronic transmission of results. Using its election result analysis dashboard (ERAD) as its evaluation yardstick, YIAGA noted that there was an optimal functionality of the INEC IReV portal.

Throwing more light on the hackers’ attempt, INEC Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu said “another technical concern for us is the repeated attempts to break through our cyber security system for the portal. Our engineers reported several cyber attacks on the portal during the Ekiti and Osun governorship elections, some of them from as far as Asia. I am glad to note that all of them failed.”

YIAGA on its part called on INEC to improve its election result upload mechanism by learning from its shortcomings in the 2022 off-cycle elections in preparing for the 2023 general elections.

They both spoke at a stakeholders’ conference on Election Results Management in the 2022 election organized by YIAGA.

The INEC boss further promised that INEC would take adequate steps to correct some of the administrative lapses that occurred during the last two polls before the 2023 general elections.

“However, while we are confident in the security solutions that we have deployed for IReV and all our web presence, we must remain vigilant and continue to strengthen our defences. We have tasked our engineers to do everything possible to fully protect the IReV and all our web resources.

“For example, we found that some of the low-quality uploads that occurred in the field, which some of the observers have also noted, were due to the unavailability or substitution of presiding officers that were trained prior to the elections,” he said.

YIAGA had observed in its findings that “while the server used for the upload of results from BVAS functioned with considerable speed due to adequate bandwidth on the server, the Amazon Web Services (AWS) server used for the storage of the polling unit results had limited bandwidth to handle the multiple requests on election day”

YIAGA’s Executive Director, Mr Samson Itodo in his presentation further pointed out issues of incorrect upload of election forms, poor image quality of election results as well as unstamped and unsigned result sheets.

YIAGA noted that in the Ekiti election, 88 result sheets were not entered into the ERAD data base due to issues that disabled data entry. In the same vein, 87 result sheets were not processed on the ERAD in the Osun gubernatorial election.

Mr. Samson Itodo further said there is a need for the electoral body to electronically transmit and publish the number of accredited voters on the IReV portal as stipulated in section 64(4)(5)(6) of the Electoral Act 2022.

INEC chairman assured the conference that “the Commission shall administratively deal with this challenge and ensure that only adequately trained Presiding Officers are deployed for elections.

“Also, more hands-on training may be required to ensure that all those involved throughout the value chain of the IReV are fully ready for what is bound to be a major outing during the 2023 general election.

He said INEC will remain ahead of evil doers in his operations and ensure that the votes count.