Reported by: Ijeoma G | Edited by: Oravbiere Osayomore Promise.
Nollywood actor and politician Emeka Ike has vowed to take legal action against Lere Olayinka, the media aide to FCT Minister Nyesom Wike, for allegedly leaking his personal voter registration details obtained from an INEC administrative portal.
The controversy erupted after Olayinka, on his official X (formerly Twitter) handle on Saturday, May 30, 2026, shared what appeared to be Ike’s voter information from an INEC administrative webpage. Olayinka wrote that Ike was formerly a registered voter in Imo State before transferring his registration to the FCT on May 15, 2026. He attached two images to the post, which many users said contained details obtained from INEC’s administrative login portal. The screenshots included Ike’s application number, registration centre, Voter Identification Number, profile picture, name, and date of application.
Ike, who contested the House of Representatives seat for the AMAC/Bwari Federal Constituency under the Nigerian Democratic Congress (NDC) and lost, reacted to the development on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief on Tuesday, June 2, 2026. He described Olayinka’s action as “shocking” and the “height of political rascality”. “It’s quite shocking, extreme, and it is the height of political rascality for a government officer to access a citizen’s information from the INEC cyber. It tells you a lot; it shows how much impunity we have flying around, and people have access to things they shouldn’t be having access to, and that’s quite deplorable,” Ike said. “I see that as a huge insult and slap on every political party and every Nigerian.”
The actor warned that Olayinka’s conduct signals a dangerous trend. “He is telling every Nigerian that whoever you are, I can pull your information from anywhere and I can do what I want, and that rascality needs to be stopped,” Ike stated. He declared his readiness to challenge Olayinka legally, saying, “Actions are ready, I’m ready to take him on. 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.”
During the interview, Ike also explained his decision to contest for a House of Representatives seat in the FCT instead of his home state, Imo. He said the shift came after a “clarion call” from Abuja residents who urged him to run in the capital. “I actually wanted to run in my state, but a couple of people came to me. It was like a clarion call. People came to me and told me, ‘Sir, you need to do this now, we need you in Abuja.’”
The INEC data leak has sparked wider concerns about the security of the commission’s database and unauthorised access by non-officials. Veteran journalist and former presidential aide Reuben Abati, while commenting on the controversy on Arise Television’s Morning Show on Monday, June 1, 2026, called for a thorough investigation into the matter. Abati noted that the portal in question is reportedly not accessible to the general public and is reserved for INEC officials. He argued that if Olayinka, who is not an INEC official, was able to access the commission’s internal database, it would amount to a major breach of privacy and could violate provisions of Nigeria’s Data Protection Act and Cybercrime Act.
“People have expressed concern. Their concerns are valid… If this is a restricted confidential backend, then, of course, it means that the secret database of INEC is open to unauthorised persons. Lere Olayinka… is not an INEC official… We do not think that being a PA to the FCT minister gives him the authority to be able to egress in and out of INEC secret database,” Abati said.
As of the time of this report, neither Olayinka nor INEC had publicly responded to the calls for investigation and clarification.
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