Recently, a well known Nollywood actor and politician who hails from Imo State, Emeka Ike threatened to take a legal action against Lere Olayinka–former media aide to former Governor of Ekiti State, Peter Ayodele Fayose and Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication and Social Media to former Governor of Rivers State and current Minister of FCT, Abuja, Wike, for exposing his voter profile without authorisation. The actor who made the threat while answering questions on social media, described the disclosure of his personal data as “the height of political rascality for a government official to access a citizen’s information from INEC Cyber and that rascality needs to be stopped. He has no right to exploit my privacy and insult Nigerians the way he did. If he has been doing it in the past, this should be the last time he does it”. Lere Olayinka’s post on Saturday, May 30,2026 contained classified personal details of the Nollywood actor such as his name, picture, voter identification number and registration centre. The post read “Emeka was a registered voter in Imo State. He only transfered his INEC registration to the FCT on May 15,2026(15 days ago). And he wants to contest for House of Reps in Abuja. Someone who has never voted in FCTo.What happened to his Imo State”.
From all indications, Lere Olayinka wanted to expose or ridicule Emeka Ike as a registered voter in Imo State who has never voted in the FCT but failed to secure the ticket of Nigeria Democratic Congress(NDC) for House of Representatives seat for a federal constituency in Abuja. To ridicule a man can be as dangerous as to revile him. The ethics of the profession say, you must expose! Then reality warns: the majority of issues you are happy to expose are events victims would want covered, unrevealed or spiked or unreported.
The public display of Emek Ike’s personal profile aroused public reactions to the safety of voters in Nigeria and conjectured rigging of the 2027 general elections through early accessing of INEC’S Continuous Voter Registration database. The post further eroded public trust in the ability of the electoral umpire to conduct free, fair and transparent elections in 2027.
Reacting to the unlawful access to INEC portal and unauthorized display of Emeka Ike’s data, INEC’S National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Mohammed Haruna said that there were no external breach of the Continuous Voter Registration database, no hacking incident and no unauthorized external access to the commission’s database. The Commissioner however confirmed that the actor’s record was accessed through valid official credentials assigned to personnel participating in the on-going Continuous Voter Registration exercise who subsequently released it to Lere Olayinka without authorisation. He informed members of the public that the matter is under investigation and anybody implicated in the leakage of the actor’s personal data from INEC Enrollment Portal would be roundly prosecuted. Meanwhile, the Nigeria Police and the Department of State Services are conducting discreet investigations into the unlawful disclosure of classified personal data of the actor with a view to bringing whoever that is involved to justice. Based on the fact that the two men committed what appears arrestable offence, the Police arrested them in connection with the divulge without a court warrant. While the INEC official whose name is yet to be made public is detained, Lere Olayinka was granted bail. His bail is not acquittal. He is bound to surrender himself to the Police at an appointed time. This is equally in line with the tenet of law which presumes a man to be innocent until he is proved guilty. He can be re-arrested by the Police whenever the need arises. However, there is the need for all the key stakeholders in Nigeria’s electoral process including Civil Society Organizations and the Media to be involved in every stage of the investigation. Nigerians are eagerly waiting for the outcome of the Independent investigations by INEC, Police and DSS. The outcome of their respective investigations will determine whether or not INEC will continue with the on-going Continuous Voter Registration exercise. Regrettably, Nigeria’s electoral umpire has been engrossed in image question over the years. Expectedly, speculations are rife that it may not be Lere Olayinka and the INEC official alone in the voter’s data saga. Lere Olayinka and his INEC colleague should be courageous to disclose their sources and accomplices.This has become necessary because a post or story without a source is a source of trouble. A whistle blower must either blow correctly or blow himself or herself into trouble.To this end, the duo risk prosecution and conviction for unlawful access to national agency’s voters enrollment portal and unauthorized divulging of a voter’s classified personal data in line with existing safeguards for protection against invasion of privacy, if found culpable. The two suspects cannot feign ignorance of the privacy law and the implications of unlawful possession of classified government documents. Unarguably, the Nollywood actor has his right to privacy. But the question begging for an answer is: Is Lere Olayinka’s publication of his personal record of any interest to the public ? The answer to this question is very germane because the crucial element determining the publishability of items bordering on privacy is”public interest”. The risks associated with invasion of privacy are enormous especially where the defendant fails to prove it as a vindication. In the prosecution of a case bordering on protection of privacy, ignorance of the law is neither an excuse nor admissible in evidence.
Most importantly, there is need for transparency in this year’s Continuous Voter Registration exercise. The previous voter registration exercises conducted by INEC were characterized by irregularities which provided fertile grounds for some politicians in privileged offices or positions to manipulate the electoral process through through accessing voters database, allocation of votes, exclusion of valid votes, mutilation of result sheets and announcement of fake results. INEC should guard against hacking of voters database and national enrollment portal by devious elements. Voters identities must be protected at all times. Exposing voters details for whatever reason can lead to linking them to illegal activities they never imagined especially these days of rising insecurity in Nigeria.
