Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has criticised the administration of Chief Bola Ahmed Tinubu over the alleged hacking of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) website, calling the incident “suspicious.”
In a statement issued by his Media Office on Thursday, Atiku expressed concerns over the timing of the alleged hack, which occurred shortly after the release of damning statistics on crime and security in Nigeria.
The NBS report, titled The Crime Experienced and Security Perception Survey (CESPS) 2024, revealed alarming figures, including the murder of approximately 614,937 Nigerians within a year and the kidnapping of 2,235,954 individuals nationwide.
The report also disclosed that N2.2 trillion was paid in ransom, averaging N2.7 million per incident, based on surveys conducted from May 2023 to April 2024.
Atiku questioned the coincidence of the hack following the release of the CESPS report, suggesting it raises doubts about the credibility of the current administration.
Atiku stated, “The unprecedented claim that the website of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has been hacked is an unpleasant development that adds up to the bad tidings that have characterized the Bola Tinubu administration.
“The development, which is coming on the heels of the recent data published on the website of the NBS on CESPS, underscores the credibility crisis of the current administration.
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“Moreover, the coincidence of this so-called hack coming only shortly after the release of damning stats on security is suspicious. We may be tempted to assume that every stats released by the Bureau is an outcome of a hack!”
He stressed that these are strange times in Nigeria, and it is hoped that the situation at hand is not an underhand attempt to pigeonhole the integrity of data majorly used for planning and development and research purposes.
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