Real-time transmission: Now that those putting their hope on hacking have been beat back, let the real work begin

 “Furthermore, on 24th February 2023, the minister inaugurated the Ministerial Standing Committee on Advisory Role for the Protection of Nigerian Cyberspace and ICT Infrastructure.

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The Committee, chaired by the Board Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) together with the CEO's of NCC, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and Galaxy Backbone (GBB) as members, was charged with: Monitoring of Telecommunication Infrastructure for the successful conduct of credible, free, fair, and transparent elections; Developing and implementing plans to enhance the resilience of critical digital infrastructure against cyber threats; and designing procedures and using technologies to prevent, detect, and respond to cyber-attacks, as well as developing the ability to recover from any damage that is done quickly.

Others include: Developing a comprehensive risk assessment, analysing the nation's current cybersecurity capabilities, and identifying gaps that need to be addressed; and Providing professional advice to the government on the effective utilisation of digital technologies in the conduct of the 2023 general elections".

“The committee  started work on 24th February 2023 and ended on 28th February 2023. During this period, a series of hacking attempts were recorded, including Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), email and IPS attacks, SSH Login Attempts, Brute force Injection attempts, Path Traversal, Detection Evasion, and Forceful Browsing.

A total of 12,988,978 attacks were recorded, originating from both within and outside Nigeria. It is worth noting that the centres successfully blocked these attacks and/or escalated them to the relevant institutions for appropriate action".

Of course, that  wasn't the first time hacking was used in attempting to manipulate elections in Nigeria.In the 2015 Nigerian presidential election, INEC's website was attacked and defaced by a hacktivist group, the Nigerian Cyber Army. Similar attacks were reported during the 2022 Osun and Ekiti state elections, with cyberattacks originating from as far as Asia.

A reasonable follow

up question to these attempts would be that if it was possible in the past to frustrate hacking, why not now?

The simple answer is because there was no mandatory real - time transmission of results as is now being ferociously canvassed, no  demanded, by a vociferous minority of characters made up largely of ethnically motivated persons who know that their only route to electoral victory is through hacking into INEC servers. And as they claimed in that meeting with Governor Peter Obi in Canada in 2023, they have enough tech - savvy gurus to perfect the job. The video was all over the Internet then.

There are, of course, other reasons they would now succeed if a mandatory electronically, real - time transmission was approved by the National Assembly and signed into law by the President. Among these are:

Experts have long warned that Nigeria's cybersecurity readiness is very poor as the country's ranking in the Global Cybersecurity Index is a major concern. They advise the need for robust cybersecurity measures which they say  is urgent.

To be able to adopt real - time electronic transmission of results, they believe that Nigeria should have long installed a maximum electoral cybersecurity system ŵhich will include

investing in advanced cybersecurity technologies as well as develop expertise in protecting its systems,

conducting regular security audits to  identify vulnerabilities and prevent attacks.

In addition, INEC, they advise should have enhanced digital literacy as well as educate voters and electoral officials about cybersecurity best practices.

By doing these and, ipso facto, prioritizing cybersecurity, Nigeria could have ensured that its elections are secure, transparent, and credible, even if results were transmitted, electronically,  real time.

Unfortunately, those shouting themselves hoarse now said nothing about any of these  requirements between 2023 and now that elections are at hand simply because they have  concentrated all their attention on help from hackers in Canada and elsewhere.

Now that the deed has been done, namely, that  President Tinubu has signed the Amended Electoral Bill into law, what remains for  these opposition parties, especially- ADC and PDP is to, first and foremost, work at, and clear their sundry legal entanglements before the courts, and then begin the delicate business of sorting out their Presidential candidates and their Vice.

Unfortunately, as has become the norm with Alhaji Atiku Abubakar at every of his  Presidential trials, he has brought ants home into the ADC - the type currently eating up PDP -

by going back to the thoroughly emaciated party to, allegedly, ferret out a running mate in the absolutely asinine hope that a Seyi Makinde can divide Yoruba vote.

Here's wishing  him his usual luck.