Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has called for an “independent and transparent” investigation of the unauthorised release of the voter registration details of Emeka Ike, a Nollywood actor.

Recently, Lere Olayinka, media aide to Nyesom Wike, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) minister, shared screenshots on X, showing details of Ike’s voter registration transfer from Imo state to the nation’s capital city.

Olayinka posted the information — which appeared to come from a restricted administrative portal of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) — while questioning the actor’s eligibility to contest a house of representatives seat in Abuja following his recent primary activities.

The post sparked outrage, with many Nigerians accusing Olayinka of gaining unauthorised access to a password-protected backend system meant only for INEC officials.

In a statement on Tuesday, INEC dismissed claims of a major breach or external hacking of its continuous voter registration (CVR) database.

The electoral umpire attributed the unauthorised disclosure of Ike’s voter information to the misuse of valid internal credentials by authorised personnel.

In a statement issued on Tuesday by Phrank Shaibu, his senior special assistant on public communication, Atiku said although INEC has admitted that sensitive voter information has been released without authorisation, the commission has failed to provide answers to some questions.

The former vice-president said INEC must be able to provide answers on how sensitive voter information in its custody finds its way to the hands of a political actor.

Atiku added that the electoral umpire must go beyond publishing press statements on the issue to providing full findings of the investigation for transparency purposes.

“INEC’s statement has moved this issue beyond conjecture. The Commission has now confirmed that voter information was accessed through credentials assigned to personnel participating in the ongoing CVR exercise and that such information was released without authority,” he said.

“That admission alone should concern every Nigerian.

“What Nigerians want to know is simple: how did information that resides within a restricted electoral database find its way into the hands of political actors and their associates?

“The fact that there was no external hack does not diminish the gravity of the incident.

“If anything, it raises even more troubling questions about internal controls, institutional safeguards, and the possibility of political interference.

“The Nigerian people deserve to know the complete chain of custody. Who accessed the information? Who requested it? Who received it? How did it leave INEC’s custody?

“And why did the trail lead directly to political actors associated with a serving minister who has repeatedly made unusually confident pronouncements about the outcome of a future election?”