Lai Mohammed, the mouthpiece of the federal government, has clarified remarks attributed to him over the failure of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to upload in real-time results of the 2023 presidential election.
Mr Mohammed, according to state-owned newswire, had claimed that the electoral body deliberately refused to upload polling units results of the nationwide February 25 exercise.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported that the Information Minister made the remarks on Tuesday in Washington DC, United States, during his official engagements with some international media organisations.
He was quoted as saying the commission took the decision due to suspected cyber attack and “withheld the uploading of the results in order to preserve the integrity of the data.”
The remarks attributed to him is in contrast with the reason INEC gave for failing to upload the results in real-time. Festus Okoye, spokesperson for the commission had a day after the poll, claimed technical glitches and not any form of sabotage or cyberattack prevented it from uploading the results.
Clarifying his position Wednesday morning, the minister said his comments were twisted.
“What I said was that, during the election, there was a technical glitch and as a result of this and for INEC to protect the data, it suspended uploading of the results,” the government propagandist explained. “INEC immediately set up a technical team to look into what went wrong and simultaneously floated another platform.
“They inserted the word “deliberately” and omitted the phrase that it was in order to protect the sanctity of the data.
“They make it to look like INEC deliberately refused to upload the results,” he added.
