Fani-Kayode Accuses APC of Planning to Rig Election; says they Possess Master Key to Smart card Readers
The Director of Media and Publicity of the PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation, Femi Fani-Kayode, has alleged that the Smart card readers planned to be used by the Independent National Electoral Commission, has been compromised by the opposition.
Fani-Kayode, who made the allegation at a news conference in Abuja on Wednesday, said that the company that supplied the card readers for the general elections had links with the opposition as a major shareholder and board member of the company, Act Technologies Ltd., is an ardent supporter of the APC.
He said: “The master encryption/decryption Key can unlock and simulate the Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) data processed by the smart card reader.
“There is only one copy of the master key in the country and it is in the possession of an individual and a known APC sympathiser and supporter, who is also the contractor responsible for the production of the PVCs and the supply of card reader to INEC.
“The master key should rightly be in the possession of INEC as the neutral umpire, under the most stringent access control protocol and not freely in the possession of a partisan actor.”
He went on to ask why INEC would contract the supply of the card reader to a supporter of the opposition, calling the act “a serious breach of security”.
He continued:“This has grave implications for the PDP as the opposition APC armed with the master key and sufficient VINs can actually simulate the same data transmitted from any smart card reader deployed for the elections at will.
“The situation is even now worsened by the fact that APC no longer has to purchase VINs or PVCs as they can now download the entire VINs directly from the INEC database.”
After raising the alarms and questions, Fani-Kayode re-iterated that the organisation and the PDP candidate, President Goodluck Jonathan, were not in any way worried about what the outcome of election would be.
“Whatever we share with you here today does not in any way mean that we shall not participate in Saturday’s election or that we are worried about how we will fare.
“The fact of the matter is that we shall not only participate but we are also very confident of winning.”
