Cambridge Analytica's ruthless bid to sway the vote in Nigeria
Still terrified witnesses paint a shocking picture of how far a western firm will go to win an election

Carole Cadwalladr

@carolecadwalla
Wed 21 Mar 2018

15.00 EDT

Last modified on Wed 21 Mar 2018 15.33 EDT

Nigeria’s former president Goodluck Jonathan
A rich supporter of Nigeria’s former president Goodluck Jonathan hired SCL for the 2015 elections. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images
If Britain hadn’t voted to leave the EU, and Trump hadn’t won the US election, it’s unlikely anyone outside Nigeria would have given a second thought to what went on during its presidential election campaign three years ago.

But the 20/20 vision of hindsight casts a very different light on the events of early 2015, and a campaign that now seems to eerily prefigure what happened in the US a year later. Many of the same characters, some of the same tactics.

At the heart of it all – data analytics company, SCL – the parent company of Cambridge Analytica. It had been hired by a rich Nigerian who supported the incumbent, President Goodluck Jonathan.

“It was the kind of campaign that was our bread and butter,” says one ex-employee. “We’re employed by a billionaire who’s panicking at the idea of a change of government and who wants to spend big to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

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This was a standard variation on what SCL had done around the world for 30 years – this time, with a twist. Weaponising information to harm an opponent was standard methodology.

It was a methodology honed and developed in the company’s defence and military work – the fifth dimension of warfare, defined by the US military as “information operations”.

What was new, or at least new to those employees who have now spoken out, was bringing these techniques to the company’s election work.

Seven individuals with close knowledge of the Nigeria campaign have described how Cambridge Analytica worked with people they believed were Israeli computer hackers.

The sources – who spoke to the Observer over many months – said the company was looking for “kompromat” on Muhammadu Buhari – at the time, leader of the opposition.

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They said the hackers offered Cambridge Analytica access to private information about Buhari.

Their testimony paints an extraordinary picture of how far a western company would contemplate going in an effort to undermine the democratic process in a country that already struggles to provide free and fair elections.

Their claims are disputed by the company, which insists it did not take possession of or use any personal information for any purpose and did not use any “hacked or stolen data”.

The company confirmed, however, that it had been hired to provide “advertising and marketing services in support of the Goodluck Jonathan campaign”.

That work seems to have come about through Brittany Kaiser, a senior director at Cambridge Analytica, who would go on to play a public role at the launch of Nigel Farage’s Leave.eu campaign, and a senior strategist on the Trump campaign.

Regarded by colleagues as a prolific networker, in December 2014 she was introduced to a Nigerian oil billionaire who wanted to fund a covert campaign to support Jonathan.

The billionaire wanted total discretion.

An ex-employee said: “[Kaiser] got a phone call. It was just before Christmas and she flew out to meet them in Washington DC. It was all a bit ridiculous. It was only six to eight weeks before the election and they were looking to spend nearly $2m.”

The election was a big deal. At stake, the future of the most populous country in Africa, and potential access to its lucrative oil reserves. The sitting president was favourite to win, though Buhari was doing unexpectedly well.

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Not least because his team had hired AKPD, once the firm of former Barack Obama strategist David Axelrod, which was pushing a slick, social media heavy Obama-esque message of hope.

“There were a lot of scared millionaires worried that Buhari would get in. It was all very last-minute. A team flew out to Abuja and put together a communications campaign. It was a straightforward, normal comms campaign in most respects,” the employee said.

Most but not all respects. The Observer has obtained an astonishing and disturbing video that Cambridge Analytica used in the campaign.

“Coming to Nigeria on February 15th, 2015,” the voiceover says in the manner of a trailer for a Hollywood movie.

“Dark. Scary. And very uncertain. Sharia for all.” And then it poses the question: “What would Nigeria look like if sharia were imposed by Buhari?”

Its answer to that question is certainly dark. And scary. It’s also graphically, brutally, violent. One minute and 19 seconds of archive news footage from Nigeria’s troubled past set to a horror movie soundtrack.

There are scenes of people being macheted to death. Their legs hacked off. Their skulls caved in. A former contractor said: “It was voter suppression of the most crude and basic kind. It was targeted at Buhari voters in Buhari regions to basically scare the shit out of them and stop them from voting.”

If Buhari wins, the film warns: women would wear the veil. Sharia law would be introduced. And the inference is, you may be macheted to death.

It wasn’t just videos spreading fear. The Cambridge Analytica campaign team in Nigeria were jumpy too.

“It felt risky, being there. There were various points when we were told we were in danger.” And in the Abuja hotel to which the team was confined in early 2015, rumours abounded.

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The tales are Graham Greene-esque. The hotel was where slick western consultants, including a team from the now disgraced Bell Pottinger, partied with their Nigerian counterparts. Mingling among them, western intelligence operatives - state backed, or privately commissioned, nobody was quite sure.

And then there were the meetings: three sources have told the Guardian about one that took place between Cambridge Analytica employees and two people they were told were Israeli intelligence operatives.

“There was a two-hour meeting that took place in the hotel lobby between two senior campaign members and Israeli intelligence. After which they swept our hotel rooms for listening devices and said they would switch out our phones. The story we were told was that there were intelligence agents from a number of different countries, including Israel and France, who were supporting Goodluck Jonathan and helping the campaigns.”

There is no suggestion that Jonathan was aware of or implicated in this support. Another employee said: “Basically the Israelis didn’t want [Buhari] to win.”

Other employees questioned whether they were “real” Israeli intelligence operatives, or Israeli private contractors.

A few weeks later, as the campaign was drawing to a close, there was another meeting at Cambridge Analytica’s London office.

An expert had flown in from Israel with a laptop, sources say.

And Alexander Nix, Cambridge Analytica’s now suspended CEO, and Kaiser, asked employees to take a thumb drive and download the contents on to their own computers.

The content was private emails and the information, they were told, related to Buhari’s financial and medical records.

One employee who was present at the London meeting said he had initially assumed the visiting expert was Mossad or Israeli intelligence passing on what he called “legtimate information”.

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But he began to realise this wasn’t the case, he said, when he saw the reaction of his colleagues. One of them had “freaked out”, he said. “He was like, ‘What the Bleep? I don’t want anything to do with this.’”

The witnesses are clear – at least in their own minds. The information they were shown had come from hackers.

Back in Nigeria, the team still on the ground found out what was going on from their colleagues in London. There was more “freaking out”. This time with live, pressing concerns.

“They were fucking scared,” said a colleague who spoke to them while they were in the country. The campaign fixer, the person with local knowledge who navigated them through the ins and outs of Nigerian politics, made it clear to them: they needed to get out of the country right away.

Cambridge Analytica had put them all in danger, they said. If opposition supporters found out, there was no saying what might happen.

One member of the team missed his flight and instead of asking the office to re-book it, he got the first fight out – to Dubai – and put it on his credit card. “Everyone just wanted to get out as soon as possible.”

A spokesman for the company said its team remained in country throughout the original campaigning period had “left in accordance with the company’s campaign plan”.

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“Team members were regularly briefed about security concerns prior to and during deployment and measures were taken to ensure the team’s safety throughout.”

There are multiple wider political questions about what went on in the Nigerian election of 2015 and the role western powers played. Whether western political campaigners taking lucrative foreign contracts are contributing to the democratic framework of developing countries – or helping to destroy them. If they’re experimenting with methods and techniques that they later re-import back to our more developed democracies.

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Christopher Wylie, the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower who spoke to the Observer, called it “post-colonial blowback”.

“The west found a way of firehosing disinformation into weak and vulnerable democracies. And now this has been turned back on us. This really is about our chickens coming home to roost.”

Another said: “Everything the company did after the Mercers got involved was about refining a set of techniques that they would go on to use in the US elections. These campaigns in other countries were experiments. They worked out how to harvest data and weaponise it. And they got steadily better at it.”

And what comes across most strongly, the sources say, is how little thought, if any, the senior directors in London had given to their employees and colleagues who became caught up in the activities, many of whom were in their early to mid-20s.

One member of staff who met the Israelis in the office on another occasion described them as “special forces” types. He said: “They were cliche alpha males with a certain intellect. Looked military, very composed. They looked like they could beat the crap out of you.”

Three years on, there is still stress in some of their voices when they recount these stories. Stress and fear and anger – about the danger they put in, and the lack of care shown toward them, the morally compromising position they were put in, the lack of knowledge they had about what sort of the company they would be working for when they took their jobs.

It’s why, despite the personal risks, so many of them agreed to speak.

“When I took that job, I did not sign up to any of this,” said one. Three years on, he is still angry and shocked and fearful. “You don’t know what this company is capable of,” he said.

In a statement, SCL Elections, the parent company of Cambridge Analytica, confirmed it had been hired in December 2014 in support of the Jonathan campaign.

“We can confirm that SCL Elections was hired in December 2014 to provide advertising and marketing services in support of the Goodluck Jonathan campaign.”

Asked specifically about the meetings in which staff described being asked to transfer personal information that they believed had been hacked, the firm said: “During an election campaign, it is normal for SCL Elections to meet with vendors seeking to provide services as a subcontractor.

“SCL Elections did not take possession of or use any personal information from such individuals for any purposes. SCL Elections does not use ‘hacked’ or ‘stolen’ data.”

Additional reporting by Ann Marlowe

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/21/cambridge-analyticas-ruthless-bid-to-sway-the-vote-in-nigeria?CMP=share_btn_tw

The "Don Fortunato" himself...

Alo Alo o Alo Alo Alo Story story o Story Story Story ...

Hmmmmmmmm

GEJ and naughtiness is like a baby glued to the feeding bottle.

The Observer has obtained an astonishing and disturbing video that Cambridge Analytica used in the campaign.

“Coming to Nigeria on February 15th, 2015,” the voiceover says in the manner of a trailer for a Hollywood movie.

“Dark. Scary. And very uncertain. Sharia for all.” And then it poses the question: “What would Nigeria look like if sharia were imposed by Buhari?”

Its answer to that question is certainly dark. And scary. It’s also graphically, brutally, violent. One minute and 19 seconds of archive news footage from Nigeria’s troubled past set to a horror movie soundtrack.

There are scenes of people being macheted to death. Their legs hacked off. Their skulls caved in. A former contractor said: “It was voter suppression of the most crude and basic kind. It was targeted at Buhari voters in Buhari regions to basically scare the poo out of them and stop them from voting.”

If Buhari wins, the film warns: women would wear the veil. Sharia law would be introduced. And the inference is, you may be macheted to death.

lmao...


I bet this is what they stole DASUKI ATM money for.


God saw their evil plans and wishes and handed them the coldest defeat ever.

I hope this story is not true, but it it's true, I blessed God for their disgrace.

hope the rich man no be Andy Ubah of Capital Oil, if he is, then GEJ must surely know about it.
This people just wan destroy this nation because of money, no wonder the death advert.
The seed planted by this criminals failed to germinate when it was needed, but now, we can all see the tree having bountiful fruits on it in every part of the nation.
The way bubu sef come dey handle matter no help matter.
God deliver us from enemy(within and out).

So Isreal (allegedly) actively tried to influence Nigeria's elections and they were expecting Nigeria to vote in their favor?

Now it made sense why President Jonathan abstained from the UN vote that would have granted Palestine freedom. Against common sense, against decades ofNigeria's foreign policy, against our views on freedom, it all fits

But here is the punchline

it didn't work


Lmaoooooooooo

The info got about PMB is actually true. In this regime, people are murdered like cows.The means of getting the info was illegal though. Let us not deviate.Everything they tried to portray BuBu as is happening today.

Mynd44:
So Isreal (allegedly) actively tried to influence Nigeria's elections and they were expecting Nigeria to vote in their favor?

Now it made sense why President Jonathan abstained from the UN vote that would have granted Palestine freedom. Against common sense, against decades ofNigeria's foreign policy, against our views on freedom, it all fits

But here is the punchline

it didn't work


Lmaoooooooooo

Remember this Video?
What are you seeing.....


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jC0eHwDZKk

deji17:


Remember this Video?
What are you seeing.....


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jC0eHwDZKk

Well, I really don't see any wrong in a sitting President visiting holy sites in accordance eith his religion but something about Isreal remains shifty even during President Jonathan's admin.

They succeeded with Brexit and Donald Trump but failed with Nigeria. Their modus operandi is the same. Preach division, spread lies, hate and propaganda, stoke fears in people, set them against each other etc. But they failed with Nigeria.

deomelo:





Sadly for you, BH started under GEJ, BH was in control of a large swath of Nigerian territory and a whole state with their flags flying all over the place, BH was beheading and slaughtering Nigerians left and right, BH was bombing and blowing Nigerians up, even in Abuja just a few miles away from where Jona and his family sleeps, BH started the schoolgirls kidnapping atrocities under Jona.


Now, please tell us, how much of that is going on in Nigeria today?

Obviously, we are dealing with what incompetent, crooked, clueless and corrupt Jona failed to deal with.


Abeg stop spinning silly tales, we are all Nigerians, we witnessed what transpired under worthless Jona.

Point of correction. BH started under Yar adua, however a comparison between GEJ and PMB is not my objective here but the reality on ground - Benue, Taraba, Plateau, Nassarawa, Zamfara, Edo, Oyo, Ondo, Kogi the consistent massacre going on in those places are a pointer to what the election 'propaganda' was trying to reveal. The info about Buhari is true but the means of getting the info was illegal that is hacking his personal information. You have every right to support him for reasons best known to you but you can't pretend he is not inept or doing very well with the nation. Nigeria is at its lowest. Corruption is rife in this administration. The country is permanently on a grind

deomelo:





Sadly for you, BH started under GEJ, BH was in control of a large swath of Nigerian territory and a whole state with their flags flying all over the place, BH was beheading and slaughtering Nigerians left and right, BH was bombing and blowing Nigerians up, even in Abuja just a few miles away from where Jona and his family sleeps, BH started the schoolgirls kidnapping atrocities under Jona.


Now, please tell us, how much of that is going on in Nigeria today?

Obviously, we are dealing with what incompetent, crooked, clueless and corrupt Jona failed to deal with.


Abeg stop spinning silly tales, we are all Nigerians, we witnessed what transpired under worthless Jona.

You don't realize Fulani herdsman has killed more people under this regime than Boko Haram did under GEJ? Lots of communities has also been occupied

deomelo:








1. BH gained prominence under Jona

2. You compared by asserting that "In this regime, people are murdered like cows."

Meaning it didn't happen or worse wasn't going on under Jona/PMB.

3. the rest of your comment means nothing, just your irrelevant and illogical opinion that doesn't jive with facts.

Who you support or not shouldn't prevent you from stating obvious facts.

I was expecting this from you. When you can't counter, you distract and deviate. My objective was never abiut comparing regimes but that the info used against Buhari was hacked from his personal info but the means was illegal. They tried to portray him as a merchant of death and he has not proven them wrong. Deaths everywhere.

deomelo:








1. BH gained prominence under Jona

2. You compared by asserting that "In this regime, people are murdered like cows."

Meaning it didn't happen or worse wasn't going on under Jona/PMB.

3. the rest of your comment means nothing, just your irrelevant and illogical opinion that doesn't jive with facts.

Who you support or not shouldn't prevent you from stating obvious facts.

Your party member Modu Sheriff groomed boko haram under Obasanjo.... It grew into a monster under yar'adua...gej and prospered like an oil business under Buhari.

Back to Daura

cc lzaa onyeoga

deomelo:




Your argument was flawed, deceptive, one-sided and misleading.

I know you are a GEJ bootie licker, but that shouldn't prevent you from stating facts and sound logic when necessary.

Typical of your ilks when they can't counter, they deviate from the point on ground and distract with insults, I insist the info used against PMB was gotten and hacked from his personal info. He was portrayed as a merchant of death and he has not proven them wrong. Deaths every day and every where.

GavelSlam:
As can be deduced, no dirty could be found on the person of Buhari much to the chagrin of PDP Muppets.

Jonathan is a disgraced ex-president and more and more information would continue to be released by the international media in days or years to come.

It's a crying shame that many Nigerians are blinkered by outright tribal and religious prejudices.

In any case, the people sensed the putrid, rotten and odious defunct ruling party and kicked them on a field goal to the historical trash bin.

LAWMA did its duty on them.

The whole Buhari sickness and avoidance of his former office has Israeli style covert poisoning all over it.

You have to wonder if the the same thing is not playing out now, Cambridge analytical still being paid to mess with Nigerians heads, with all the blame Buhari being posted everywhere

If America and Russia are talking of Hacking during election, These Zombies over here will also make same statement.
ANYWAY, THANK GOD FOR THE HACKERS, WE NOW KNOW SOME SECRETS WE NOW KNOW WE HAVE A PAEDOPHILE, BOKO HARAM SPONSOR AS A PRES***NT

How do they convince the mind of the common man set to vote?

Their is no machine to hack into, moreover an easier route would have been to indict jega and sack him.

The cambridge analytica may only unearth truths and secrets(arsenals) of the contestant.

deomelo:






100 people slaughtered.

That was in 2014 under Jona..


We are dealing with Jona's failures and gross incompetence.


Abeg stop insulting our intelligence with lies and silly bigoted rubbish.,

ppl shud put on black mourning sack clothes and spray ashes on themselves and mourn and cry to God seriously because of people like you around. Pity

dealslip:


I insist the info used against PMB was gotten and hacked from his personal info.
He was portrayed as a merchant of death and he has proven them wrong. Deaths every day and every where.

1. The hacked info was financial and medical records so they turned financial and medical records into a merchant of death?

Was PMB killing and slaughtering Nigerians with his financial and medical records?

Or you just don't know how to read and comprehend the simple English words in the article? Or you are just a liar?

2. The video they used to scare and divide Nigerians were horrific BH incidents that happened under Jona so you are in effect roping that around your useless Jona's neck. Or was PMB the president when the atrocities in the video were committed.


3. The folks responsible for the horrible and disgusting things these foreigners tried to do to us are regretting what they did and are now speaking out against the evil company they worked for, bus some sadists and unpatriotic anti-Nigerian elements are upset that their evil plans did not succeed.



How pathetic can you people be, you wish doom and gloom for your own country all because of hate, bigotry, anger, bitterness and petty tribalism?

[s]

GMbuharii:


ppl shud put on black mourning sack clothes and spray ashes on themselves and mourn and cry to God seriously because of people like you around. Pity

[/s]


Keep quiet if you have nothing better to talk about.