Data Hacking:SSS Accusation Is Baseless..APC

The All Progressives Congress has dismissed the findings of the Department of State Service following its raid on the APC’s offices in Lagos, saying it is flimsy, partisan and an embarrassment to all intelligence-gathering agencies in the world

It said the ‘findings’ presented to the media by the DSS on Wednesday was a great disservice to Nigeria.

The party stated these in a statement issued in Abuja on Wednesday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.

It described the timing of the release of the ‘findings’ as a plot orchestrated in collusion with the Peoples Democratic Party to distract the APC from its ongoing campaigns.

The APC described as disingenuous, flimsy, premeditated and partisan, the conclusion that the APC had an ‘’articulated plan to inflate the party’s membership data as well as hack into the Independent National Electoral Commission’s voter registration database.

It said, “First, the DSS and the PDP said the APC was cloning Permanent Voter 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?”

The APC wondered if the DSS report stood any serious scrutiny, adding that any serious intelligence-gathering agency anywhere else in the world would not take it (the report) seriously.

It asked, “Why would the spokesperson for 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 APC said that while it was willing to meet the DSS in court, it could confidently say that the ‘confessions’ extracted from the arrested persons, after they were subjected to torture, could not even stand in any court of law.

The party recalled that in its statement of December 5, 2014, it accused the DSS of resorting to the use of torture to obtain confessions from those who were arrested during the first raid.

It said that in that statement, it called the action of the DSS a contravention of the United Nations Convention against torture to which Nigeria is a signatory and a violation of the citizens’ fundamental human rights.

“Now the DSS has confirmed what we said in that press statement. Is anyone still surprised at the action of countries that are distancing themselves from Nigeria over human rights violations?’’ He added.