The Federal Government, through Minister of Communications and Digital Economy Isa Pantami, reported that 12,988,978 cyber‑attacks—both domestic and foreign—were recorded during the presidential election. On average, at least 1,550,000 threats to public websites and portals were logged each day, a figure that surged to 6,997,277 on election day itself.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the minister’s spokesperson, Uwa Sulaiman, detailed the types of hacking attempts observed during the period from 24 February to 27 February 2023. These included Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, email and IPS attacks, SSH login attempts, brute‑force injection attempts, path traversal, detection evasion, and forceful browsing. Pantami directed all relevant parastatals to intensify 24/7 monitoring of network traffic for potential threats.
On 24 February 2023, Pantami inaugurated the Ministerial Standing Committee on Advisory Role for the Protection of Nigerian Cyberspace and ICT Infrastructure. Chaired by the NCC Board Chairman and comprising the CEOs of NCC, NITDA, and GBB, the committee was tasked with monitoring telecommunications infrastructure to ensure a credible, free, fair and transparent election. Its mandate includes developing and implementing plans to strengthen the resilience of critical digital infrastructure, designing procedures and technologies to prevent, detect and respond to cyber‑attacks, and establishing rapid recovery capabilities. The committee also undertook a comprehensive risk assessment, analysed Nigeria’s current cybersecurity capacity, identified gaps, and provided professional advice on the effective use of digital technologies for the 2023 general elections.
The Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy is responsible for safeguarding Nigeria’s cyberspace to a level that inspires public confidence in digital services, in line with the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy for a Digital Nigeria (NDEPS). To support this mandate, the ministry’s supervised parastatals have set up cybersecurity centres: NITDA’s Computer Emergency Readiness and Response Team (CERRT), NCC’s Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT), and Galaxy Backbone’s Security Operations Centre (SOC). Established between 2020 and 2022 under the minister’s policy directives, these centres have continuously monitored the nation’s cyberspace, mitigating threats individually, collectively, and in collaboration with other stakeholders.
Threat intelligence indicated an astronomical rise in cyber threats ahead of the 2023 General Elections. While daily threats to public websites averaged around 1,550,000, they peaked at 6,997,277 on presidential election day. The committee’s activities spanned from 24 February to 28 February 2023, during which the aforementioned hacking attempts were recorded, culminating in a total of 12,988,978 attacks from both inside and outside Nigeria.
The statement praised the parastatals under the ministry’s supervision for creating an enabling environment that contributed to a credible, free, fair and transparent election. Minister Pantami commended all stakeholders in the digital‑economy ecosystem for their support, attributing the success to the commitment of President Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) to Nigeria’s digital transformation. He expressed appreciation for the President’s continued backing of the digital economy sector and hoped that lessons learned would be applied to future elections.
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