₦airaland Forum

abduljabbar4:
Gej told us that the refinaries would start working by 2016 and 99bn was needed. Something that gej wanted to do in a year has been done in 2 months by Buhari without needing 99bn.

'Jonathan is a disaster to this nation' - barcanista

The governor of Bayelsa state, Seriake Dickson, is not the only politician hacking phones and intercepting communication of political peers and rivals in Nigeria.

Almost all recent governors of the South South region of Nigeria intercepted calls and hacked phones and computers, an illegal practice that gave them backdoor access to many people’s private lives, an ongoing PREMIUM TIMES investigation has revealed.

Our findings show that Rotimi Amaechi, former Rivers state governor; Godswill Akpabio, former Akwa Ibom state governor; and Emmanuel Uduaghan, former Delta state governor illegally acquired technologies that allowed them conduct mass surveillance and hack people’s gadgets, mainly to eavesdrop on their conversations, know who they talked with and what their plans were.

These three formers governors are the latest privacy violators and spymasters weeks after Mr. Dickson was exposed for similar illegal practice. They all exited office as governors in May, following the end of their second term in office.

Most of the hacking carried out by the governors occurred within the last four years, during the last term of their two-term tenures as governors and at times in liaison with compromised federal security authorities.

In fact, those who should know said some officials of the State Security Service, SSS, colluded with the governors as they engaged in massive hacking, helping disguise their acts as federal security projects.

Officials at the office of the National Security Adviser admitted demanding explanations from the hacking governors over their illegal surveillance programmes at different times with each of them giving similar excuses.

“They claimed they were using it to track kidnappers,” officials at the office of the National Security Adviser said. “The governors claimed they were carrying out the operations with the SSS, but our investigations showed they were running it from their offices.”

Investigators from the office of the National Security Adviser later found the governors’ claims that they were hacking phones to track kidnappers to be false, suggesting the governors targeted political superiors, associates and peers, while using the SSS to disguise the expedition as approved national security projects.

Some politicians and businessmen interviewed for this story from the affected states said they knew all along that these governors monitored their communications illegally.

A contractor from Akwa Ibom said Governor Akpabio refused to pay him for the project he executed for the state after he tapped his phone and overheard some critical comments he made about the former governor to some friends.

“He once boasted to me that he knew what I was doing and what I was saying about him,” the contractor said.

Rivers State

The Rivers spying program started in 2008 – in the wake of the Niger Delta amnesty program – as a security contract targeted at helping the police in the state respond faster to crime scenes using a C4i (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Intelligence) technology deployed by an Israeli military security firm, MPD Systems.

The project saw the Rivers State government and MPD Systems train at least 1,500 security officials, providing the perfect ‘federal’ cover under which the political spying was carried out.

The spokesperson of the Amaechi regime, Ibim Semenitari, argued that the project could not have been used for spying on politicians.
“Given the well publicized infractions between the Rivers State Government and the GEJ (Goodluck Ebele Jonathan)-led federal Government the state would not have been able to embark on the issues raised without the security agencies clamping down on its officials,” she said.

She also argued that the project was approved by late former president, Umaru Musa yar’Adua, after a presentation attended by Nigeria’s service chiefs at the time and the then head of the SSS, Afakriya Gadzama.

“Equipment were imported with the approval of the NSA,” and “The outfit was manned by security officials drawn from the Police and SSS who were responsible to their state commands,” Ms. Semenitari argued.

The office of the National Security Adviser denied issuing the End User Certificate for C4i. Also, the command centre was installed and operated from the Government house, rather than the SSS or Police department.

Mr. Amaechi’s last term as Rivers state governor was very turbulent. He fell out with his close allies, including former first lady, Patience Jonathan, and the current governor, Nyesom Wike. His deputy governor jumped ship few days to the elections.

The state recorded an unprecedented level of political violence in the run-up to the general elections. Mr. Amaechi’s political party, the All Progressives Congress lost that election in the state. A commission of inquiry Mr. Amaechi empanelled to probe the election violence recorded at least 30 deaths of the former governor’s party members. The opposing Peoples Democratic Party boycotted the inquiry.

Akwa Ibom state

Even though Mr. Akpabio and his Rivers counterpart disagreed on many fronts, their appetite for surreptitiously collecting private data from their political associates and rivals appear to tally. Both former governors started their spying facilities on similar premise – to fight kidnapping and other related crimes.

“We knew that he (Godswill Akpabio) acquired a device to monitor people’s telephone calls but there was absolutely nothing we could do,” Umana Okon who was secretary to the state government when the device was installed said. “The device was acquired at the time kidnapping was quite high in the state. But after kidnapping abated, it was used to monitor telephone calls of private citizens and government officials.”
The period when Mr. Akpabio used the phone hacking tools in Akwa Ibom also coincided with a period that was fraught with political assassinations, kidnapping and intimidation.

The National Security Adviser, once in 2012, declined to issue Mr. Akpabio an End User Certificate to buy Hacking Team’s cyber warfare tools.
The Akpabio regime in Akwa Ibom denied running the hacking facility.

Aniekan Umana, the state’s commissioner of information – he was also the information commissioner under Akpabio – said Mr. Akpabio never ran any private security facility, insisting that everything security was run by the SSS and police.

Officials of that government who spoke to PREMIUM TIMES in confidence however confirmed the existence of the spying facility. Like Rivers’, Mr. Akpabio’s spying facility was also installed and run from the governor’s office rather than the SSS or police department.
The state government also denied the claims.

“The governor (Mr. Akpabio) has no need to hack anyone’s phone,” Aniekan Umana said. He claimed that when the state sought the Hacking Team’s tools, it was to help the security agencies.

When the spying became very obvious, many politicians who felt their privacy had been invaded complained to the National Security Adviser but nothing was done.

With a new government installed since May 29, the opposition in Akwa Ibom are now calling for a full-scale investigation of the surveillance programmes and its privacy breaches.

“If the law was breached in any way, those guilty will be made to face justice. That is the minimum we expect from the Federal Government,” Mr. Okon, now an opposition leader, demanded.

Delta state

Delta state was not as violent as both Rivers and Akwa Ibom state during the last elections. But Emmanuel Uduaghan, the state’s former governor who operated the spying tools – also from his office building – cited kidnapping as the reason for purchasing the tool.

Mr. Uduaghan could not be reached for his comments. Text messages and telephone calls to his spokespersons were neither answered nor returned.

Political Goons, Cyber Bullies

The Rivers state C4i, Ms. Semenitari claims, was handed over to the new government, suggesting it is probably still in use.
The Akwa Ibom facility is still in use in the governor’s office, our sources said.
The current state of the Delta state spying facility is unclear.

The office of the National Security Adviser claims the hacking governors repeatedly ignored warnings to discontinue their “illegal” projects, in apparent abuse of their political influence.

Mr. Amaechi was a strong member of the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party and Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum at the time. He later fell out with former President Goodluck Jonathan and became the leader of President Muhammadu Buhari’s campaign team. He is currently a close ally of Mr. Buhari.

Messrs. Akpabio and Uduaghan were strong allies of former President Jonathan. Mr. Akpabio later became chairman of the PDP Governor’s Forum. He is now a serving senator and Minority leader of the Senate.

Bayelsa Hacking Team

At the time the NSA was probing these three governors, the hacking expedition of the Bayelsa state governor, Seriake Dickson, was largely unknown.

Until it was exposed by PREMIUM TIMES, Mr. Dickson’s hacking activities were stealth and done without permission by the office of the National Security Adviser.

It was only revealed after Hacking Team, the Italian cyber weaponry firm, which provided Mr. Dickson with attack tools was itself hacked early July and internal company documents leaked to the public.

The documents indicate governor’s hacking activities began in 2012 and lasted through 2013, according to Hacking Team’s leaked internal company documents.

In Nigeria, only federal security agencies are allowed to acquire cyber attack and defence tools. And when they did, it has to be with the permission of the National Security Adviser who provides End User Certificates. The right to either intercept communications or act to suspend rights in the face of national security rests with the Federal Government.
None of the hacking governors got either permission or End User Certificates from the Office of the National Security Adviser before embarking on their privacy-breaching surveillance.
In fact, the former Akwa Ibom state governor, now a senator, once failed to secure an End User Certificate from the NSA to buy Hacking Team’s Galileo in 2013.
Cyber security analysts say data acquired by the hacking governors may have been used – and could be used in future – for cyber bullying, intimidation and blackmail.
These illegal hacking activities of politicians spotlights the vulnerability of the private lives of many Nigerians. The Hacking Team’s hack revelations and this, from the office of the National Security Adviser, shows anyone – individuals and organizations – with enough financial and political clout can acquire and deploy hitech hacking tools and illegally collect private data from targeted Nigerians.

“Unfortunately, the law that should protect the right to citizen privacy, and allow them seek redress if illegally hacked, doesn’t exist in Nigeria,” Gbenga Sesan, Executive Director, Paradigm Initiative Nigeria said. “That’s one of the reasons why all the biometric information being obtained by banks (BVN), NIMC (NIN), etc, are unsafe and should be halted until data protection is guaranteed in Nigeria.”

If the former NSA, Sambo Dasuki, who probed these former governors had opted to prosecute them, he would have been held back by the lack of clear laws against the former governors. Nigeria’s CyberCrime law was only enacted in 2015.

A section of the law which could be deployed to punish the hacking governors prescribes a prison term of not more than two years, or a fine of N5 million or both.

“Unauthorised surveillance of individuals is ethically wrong even if our laws are fuzzy about our rights to privacy from digital intrusion,” Femi Longe, co-founder of Co-Creation Hub, argued. “Heaven knows how they have used the information obtained illegally to pervert justice and unduly influence individuals within and outside the state.”

PhockPhockMan:
Shaarrrrraaaaap, I'm not in the same class with the OP, two edged sword, he thinks supporting the obvious suppression of Ndigbo will give him Nationalist outlook.

So sad.

omenka:
Good!! Now it is coming from PT themselves. I created a similar thread couple of weeks back www.nairaland.com/2452978/opportunity-cost-corruption-under-goodluck but Lalasticlala and Ishilove refused to honour it for reasons best known to them.

God dey.

PPAngel:
Start planting cotton and groundnut

chuna1985:
Oh!!! Journalists are foools.

O thou wisest, what makes the OP foolish journalism

Christmasdon:
What do you have to react.on this. Cc. Lalasticl..ala

Smh.

Futureleader1:
oh really? Then make a difference

glamourroudy:
A lot?.........I didn't read d post

Are you that lazy?

abduljabbar4:
Thank God for change. God will punish those that wanted us to continue living that way

MuhdG:
Hahahaa. No oo. I'm looking after my wife and kids.

Lol. You are not alone.

Futureleader1:

MuhdG:

If one third of the Nigerian population were to queue up for a bonus pay cheque, no fewer than 53 million citizens will smile home with N18,000 every month for a full year from the unaccounted N11.56 trillion Excess Crude Accounts now subject of national accountability scandal.

PREMIUM TIMES exclusive investigation indicating that N11.56 trillion in oil revenues remained unaccounted for in eight years is putting fresh spotlight on the Nigerian government’s poor accountability record and underlining the human cost of Nigerian corruption.

Because a huge chunk of Nigeria’s resources are either stolen or unaccounted for, Africa’s largest oil producer has continued to grapple with devastating poverty and chronic underdevelopment, said Chibuike Mgbeahuruike, Executive Director of Nigeria’s activist group, Civic Space Initiative.
“Many people have died in recent years on account of Boko Haram, but many more have been killed as a result of public sector corruption expressed in widespread poverty, accident-ridden bad roads, poor health facilities and general infrastructure decay,” he said.

PREMIUM TIMES’ data scientists and reporters who surveyed seven key sectors of the nation’s life say in the hands of development-minded administrators, the N11.56 excess crude money so far unaccounted for could have provided at least 577,000 primary schools built for N20 million each; while 1.16 million health centres could have been built for N7million.

Still on the health track, 76 million Nigerian kids could get mosquito treated nets at N6,900 each, saving them from the scourge of malaria which today kills more than 300,000 Nigerian children under the age of five in annually and responsible for 11 per cent of maternal mortality cases yearly, according to experts at the Malaria Action Programme for States (MAPS).

With the country’s HIV population of 3.1 million, the nation would be a healthier environment caring for the ART needs of this vulnerable group for 108 years if N34,500 is spent on each patient per year.

The perennial power shortage that has crippled economic growth and development efforts could get an unusual boost with an additional investment in 457 gas fired turbine plant at the cost of N25.3 billion per piece. Each plant can generate an average of 485 megawatts, according to an estimate provided by a committee led by former Vice President Namadi Sambo. So 457 units can generate over 220,000 megawatts to the national grid.

Highway infrastructure, water and sanitation development and provision of low cost housing are the other areas that can see remarkable transformation.

In the housing sector, at N7million per piece, the country can provide 1.65 million additional cheap housing for citizens; and provide 126 million households with potable water at a cost of N93,000 per household connection. That will far exceed national needs, since, on the records of the National Bureau on Statistics, the country only has 45 million households.

In the area of highway infrastructure, available data show that 123,000 km of dual carriage paved roads can be built at current cost of N93million per kilometre. That translates to building a road from Lagos to Maiduguri and then to Port Harcourt.
In interviews with PREMIUM TIMES, development planners bemoaned the negative effects of corruption on Nigeria.

“Corruption retards national development, makes a few people rich, more people are pushed down the poverty line; violated people’s economic and social rights to the benefits of natural resource endowment; denies Nigeria the opportunity of occupying her rightful position in the comity of nations,” said Eze Onyekpere, Lead Director, Centre for Social Justice.

Auwal Rafsanjani, Executive Director, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre [CISLAC] agrees.


“Corruption denies Nigeria development at the level the people desire, particularly in terms of ability to provide the basic infrastructure to give the people quality living,” Mr. Rafsanjani said. “Corruption deprives the people of water, roads, hospital, health centres.

“The insecurity in the country, like Boko Haram, is as a result of corruption, because those at the border collect bribe to allow the insurgents to come into the country; all kinds of goods are allowed to come into country to compete with our local industries.”

As far as Faith Nwadishi, National Chairman, Publish What You Pay Nigeria, is concerned, “Corruption has given Nigeria a bad image, making the country to lose a lot of diplomatic grounds, as people would not want to do business with the people without the suspicion being duped.”

Joseph Amenaghawon of the Open Society Initiative for West Africa [OSIWA], argued along the same line.

“Corruption has not allowed the country to be opened up for the quantum of investment that should flow in country,” Mr. Amenaghawon said. “Corruption has made it difficult for the country to translate growth into benefits for the people, which has resulted in high incidence of youth unemployment. The corruption around the oil industry has not allowed the economy to spread the value from the national resource to impact the people.”

hinwazaka:
A wise saying goes " We see the world through our eyes"
You claim he is a paid E-social analyst. Maybe because you are 1

PhockPhockMan:
The OP is a confused fellow. Just like bat, neither here nor there. I know he will surely change moniker because nobody takes him serious anymore. GOOD BYE MY DEAR

Spybradd:
HUH!?!Look whos talking!?!?! Look the potential student terrorist in training talking!!!!

sukkot:
bros, when i say scarcity of men, i mean scarcity of dangote men. these women rather face konji and blow themselves up than mess with broke men like us. dem dey look for dangote and otedola men wey go buy dem private jet for birthday

Hahahahahahahaha LWTMB. NoW I get it.

They should continue blowing themselve