By Omeiza Ajayi

ABUJA: The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has declared that a forensic cybersecurity investigation has conclusively established that its Chairman, Prof. Joash Ojo Amupitan, SAN, does not own or operate any account on X, formerly known as Twitter.

It also said viral social media posts attributed to him were digitally fabricated, as part of a coordinated disinformation campaign.

The commission disclosed this in a statement by the Chief Press Secretary and Media Adviser to the Chairman, Mr Adedayo Oketola, in Abuja yesterday, following weeks of circulating screenshots that purported to show Amupitan making a partisan political post on the platform.

According to the statement, the trouble began on April 10, 2026, when Prof. Amupitan’s attention was drawn to posts and screenshots on social media claiming he operated an X account under the handle @joashamupitan and had posted the phrase “Victory is sure” in reply to another user, @dayoisreal.

The screenshots spread rapidly across both traditional and online media, with accompanying records of emails, phone numbers, OPay and BVN verification data and alleged data breach files presented as corroborating evidence linking the INEC boss to the account.

INEC responded by commissioning an independent forensic cybersecurity expert, who conducted a multi-layered investigation using X platform data, internet archive records, OSINT tools, identity forensics and cross-platform analysis. The findings were unequivocal, he said.  

“The forensic evidence is comprehensive, multi-sourced, and unambiguous. The posts attributed to Prof. Amupitan on X are fabricated. The account is a clear case of impersonation, and the surrounding activity points to a coordinated disinformation effort intended to manipulate public perception”, Oketola said.

Among the most striking pieces of forensic evidence was a timestamp anomaly that investigators described as the definitive proof of fabrication.

The viral screenshots showed the alleged “Victory is sure” reply from @joashamupitan timestamped at 4:05 PM, yet forensic verification of the original post by @dayoisreal confirmed it was published at 4:18 PM Nigerian time — thirteen minutes later.

The commission stated that the alleged reply had therefore been timestamped thirteen minutes before the original post existed, a technical impossibility on any digital platform.

“No platform can receive a reply before the original post is published,” the statement noted, adding that the discrepancy “is not a minor inconsistency or time zone error” but proof that the screenshot was digitally edited or fabricated, likely using Artificial Intelligence.

He said further forensic checks on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine returned zero records of the @joashamupitan account before April 10, 2026.

According to him, no archived profile, no archived posts, and no trace of any account activity existed prior to the day the screenshots went viral.

He said live platform verification equally confirmed that the alleged “Victory is sure” reply is absent from the active thread of @dayoisreal, and exhaustive X platform searches for the phrase from the disputed account returned no results whatsoever.

Investigators also noted a telling sequence of events on April 10: on the same day the screenshots exploded online, the @joashamupitan account was swiftly renamed to @sundayvibe00, set to private, and retroactively labelled a “Parody Account.”

The commission described this as “a damage-control tactic by an impersonator seeking to eliminate a digital trail,” adding that the self-applied parody label “constituted an implicit admission that the account was never Prof. Amupitan’s genuine personal account.”

According to the statement, attempts to link the disputed account to Prof. Amupitan’s known email address,  amupitanj@yahoo.com, and an associated phone number through X’s official account recovery and password reset flows also failed completely.

On the BVN and OPay data used to buttress the disinformation, the commission dismissed the inference as “a logical fallacy, not forensic proof,” stating that a phone number appearing in a BVN record could not be used to establish social media account ownership.

The investigation further uncovered a broader pattern of multi-platform impersonation. At least seven fake Facebook and Instagram accounts using Prof. Amupitan’s name and profile photographs were identified, some dating back as far as 2018, years before his October 2025 appointment as INEC chairman, with several showing suspicious recent modifications.

One of the independent investigators characterised the entire operation as “a coordinated digital impersonation and disinformation campaign.”

The commission has since referred the forensic report to law enforcement agencies, calling for the swift identification and prosecution of those responsible under Nigeria’s Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, etc.) Act, which criminalises identity theft, digital forgery and the dissemination of manipulated electronic content.

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