A Lagos-based non-profit social enterprise, Paradigm
Initiative Nigeria (PIN) has made a Freedom of Information (FOI) request on the
Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) over the unauthorized release
of citizens data to a third party known as voters.ng, reports ITRealms.
Investigations by ITRealms confirmed this release, just as
PIN said its core objective as a stakeholder and practitioner in the Information
and Communication Technology (ICT) sector in Nigeria, is at the centre of
advocacy efforts to ensure that not only do technologies and innovations
improve the lives of every Nigerian citizen but that they are also done while
conforming to fundamental rights of every Nigerian.
According to the Executive Director, Paradigm Initiative
Nigeria, Mr. Gbenga Sesan, among these rights are Freedom to Expression online,
Right to Opinion, Transparency in Surveillance and most importantly, at the
heart of this call, Right to Privacy.
“Not only are these rights protected, by extension by the
1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) they are
currently amplified in the Digital Rights and Freedom Bill (HB. 490) which
seeks to exhaustively engage issues of positive rights like these,” he said.
Sesan pointed out that statutorily, on the 19th of
September, 2016, Paradigm Initiative Nigeria through its ICT Policy engagements
has relied on the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act of 2011 to
request information from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)
on the true state of fact on the data of private citizens currently on the
www.voters.ng platform.
This call, the Program Assistant o ICT Policy, at PIN Tomiwa Ilori, said, was
made to ensure that the rights of every Nigerian citizen are adequately
protected especially in the age where technologies are capable of being used
against individual safety.
He highlighted the importance, noting that not only does it
smack of distrust and lack of due diligence by a public institution in
performing its duties to find data of private citizens handed to them in trust
in the hand of a third party without any evidence of consent of these citizens
sought, it portends great danger to the digital survival of the nation’s
social, political and economic environment.
In addition, Mr. Sesan, urged INEC to heed the call and
comply with the request in the interest of all Nigerians.
“Also, we call on all stakeholders interested in ensuring
that our social capital as a society is preserved to weigh in on this issue,
join hands with us and see it to a logical conclusion,” Sesan enjoined.
Pix: ED, PIN, Gbenga Sesan and INEC chairman Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
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