Raided APC office used for cloning voter cards, says DSS

The Department of State Services (DSS) has revealed its reason for Saturday’s raid on the data office of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Lagos.

APC had condemned the act, describing it as the worst political scandal in the history of Nigeria.

However, Marilyn Ogar, spokeswoman of the service, said DSS acted based on a petition that some persons were trying to hack into the database of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) by cloning the commission’s Permanent Voter Cards (PVC).

Ogar said there was no indication that the building located at 10, Bola Ajbola street, Allen Avenue, Ikeja, was a private or government property.

“The petition alleged that those behind the activities were cloning INEC Permanent Voters Card with the intention of hacking into INEC data base, corrupting it and replacing them with their own data,” Ogar said in a statement on Sunday.

“Based on this information, the service placed the building under surveillance and having been convinced that some unwholesome activities were going on in the building, it undertook a raid of the premises.

“In the process, some persons were arrested, while a server, three hard drive and 31 Ghana-must-go bags of hard copy document were recovered and taken away for further investigation.”