Nollywood actor Emeka Ike has said he is prepared to take legal action against Lere Olayinka, the media aide to Nyesom Wike, over the disclosure of information allegedly obtained from the portal of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Ike, who contested for the AMAC/Bwari House of Representatives seat in the FCT under the Nigerian Democratic Congress (NDC) but was unsuccessful, was recently at the centre of a controversy after Olayinka shared details of his voter registration online.
In a post on X on Saturday, Olayinka claimed that Ike was initially registered as a voter in Imo State before transferring his registration to the FCT on May 15. He accompanied the post with screenshots that many Nigerians believed were sourced from an INEC administrative portal.
The images reportedly contained sensitive information, including Ike’s application number, registration centre, Voter Identification Number (VIN), profile photograph, name and date of application.
Speaking on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief on Tuesday, Ike condemned the incident, describing it as a disturbing abuse of access to citizens’ personal information.
“It’s quite shocking, extreme and it is the height of political rascality for government officer to access a citizen’s information from the INEC cyber. It tells you a lot, shows how much impunity we have flying around there and people have access to the things they shouldn’t be having access to and that’s quite deplorable and I see that as a huge insult and slap on every political party and every Nigerian.
“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,” he said.
The actor stated that he was ready to pursue the matter and hold Olayinka accountable for making his personal information public.
“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.”
Ike also used the programme to explain why he chose to contest for a House of Representatives seat in the FCT rather than in his home state.
“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’.
“And I’m like you know I’m already trying to run in my state, but they insisted and the surge was high and I considered it seeing the relevant issues they brought on board and I said okay fine let’s see how we can build Abuja. A municipal area needs to be properly guarded and looked into, so I decided to shift to Abuja,” Ike said.
