Veteran Nollywood actor and politician Emeka Ike has strongly condemned the aide to Federal Capital Territory Minister Nyesom Wike for allegedly breaching data privacy by accessing and publishing his personal voter identification details from the Independent National Electoral Commission database.
Details of the Data Breach
The issue arose after Lere Olayinka, a media aide to the minister, publicly shared the actor’s private voter details online. The leaked information included sensitive data such as his voter identification number, registration centre, application details, profile picture, and registration history. The leak followed the actor’s recent loss in a political primary election, a setback that has drawn intense public discussion.
Emeka Ike's Reaction
Reacting to the development in an interview on Channels Television, the filmmaker described the civil servant’s actions as a dangerous abuse of power that threatens the privacy of every Nigerian citizen. The actor called out the impunity of government officials who use the state apparatus to target individuals. He warned that allowing such actions to go unpunished creates a dangerous precedent where public officers can weaponize private data against anyone they choose.
He said, “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, 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 further argued that the public leak was a deliberate show of power meant to intimidate the public. “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 added.
Legal Action Planned
The Nollywood star also revealed plans to take formal legal steps against Olayinka to ensure accountability for the breach of his constitutional rights. “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,” the filmmaker noted.
