Nigeria’s Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, has explained the reason why the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC), failed to upload the results of the February 25 presidential election in real time on the IReV portal.

Recall that the electoral umpire came under fire over its inability to upload results immediately on its result viewing portal in real time during the presidential and National Assembly elections held on 25 February.

The minister said INEC’s decision to withhold the upload was because of a suspected cyberattack.

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“INEC, suspecting cyberattack, withheld the uploading of the results in order to preserve the integrity of the data,” he said.

Integrity News earlier reported that the minister is in Washington, the United States, to engage with international media organisations and Think tanks on the just-concluded 2023 polls.

Speaking further on the upload of election results, the minister said “It is unfortunate that this is what the opposition are relying on to say the elections were rigged.

“So far, none of the political parties has come out to say that what is on Form EC8A is different from what was uploaded on IREV.”

Mr Mohammed also rejected the allegations of fraud being pushed around by the opposition and skeptics, saying the claim is not factual.

Layiwola “Lai” Mohammed CON is a Nigerian lawyer and politician. He is currently the Minister of Information and Culture, a position he has held since November 2015. He is also the former National publicity secretary of the All Progressives Congress.