Here is a very important information for the 47 million Nigerian Internet users. Big Brother, in the form of the Jonathan administration, is watching you, and your communication is no longer safe.
It is one of the most far-reaching policies ever designed in Nigeria’s history to invade the privacy of citizens.
The Jonathan administration secretly, and in open violation of lawful contracting procedures, has awarded an Israeli firm, Elbit Systems, with headquarters in Haifa, a $40million contract to help it spy on citizens’ computers and Internet communications under the guise of intelligence gathering and national security.
Elbit announced the contract award Wednesday in a global press release
but was silent on the Nigerian destination of the contract. Its general
manager, Yehuda Vered, opaquely announced that “Elbit Systems will
supply its Wise Intelligence Technology (WiT) system to an unnamed
country in Africa under a new $40 million contract announced on 24
April… for Intelligence Analysis and Cyber Defense,” but effusively
claimed, in the statement, that his company is “proud to be selected to
supply this unique system, which is already field-proven, fully
operational and customisable.
“Elbit Systems is a world leader in the
fields of intelligence analysis and cyber defense, with proven solutions
highly suitable for countries, armies and critical infrastructure
sites. We hope that additional customers will follow in selecting our
highly advanced and cutting edge systems in these fields as their
preferred solution,” Mr. Vered added.
Multiple and very reliable sources in the administration confirmed to PREMIUM TIMES
that Nigeria is indeed the “unnamed African country,” and with details
from the Elbit statement, our sources say the contract will now help the
Jonathan administration access all computers and read all email
correspondences of citizens in what is clearly, an infringement on
constitutionally guaranteed freedom of expression.
No single policy of this administration
has so far affected, in one fell swoop, the lives of 47 million
citizens, a third of the Nigerian population and about four times the
number of voters who brought the president to power two years ago.
Nigerian netizens, the horde of active citizens that use the computer and Internet, are the 10th in a global ranking that make them 27 per cent of Africa’s total Internet users, far ahead of Egypt [19th global ranking] and South Africa [37th in global ranking].
The growth path of the Internet in
Nigeria has also been dramatic, rising from a mere 200,000 Internet
users in 2002 to 47 million this year, according to data from the Global
Internet user, one of the Internet audit groups.
This development has not always
gladdened public officials in Nigeria many who have expressed open
displeasure at the use of the Internet by social media activists and the
power of its possibilities as an empowering medium for popular
communication. The calls for regulation have been loud in both the
administration and in the Nigerian legislature.
The earliest hint that the Jonathan
administration had desires to invade privacy of citizens surfaced ealy
April when researchers at the Munk School for Global Affairs at the
University of Toronto alerted the world that Nigeria, Egypt, and Kenya
were deploying Internet surveillance and censorship technology developed
by an American company, Blue Coat,
which specializes in online security. Blue Coat’s technology will allow
the government to invade the privacy of journalists, netizens and their
sources. Its censorship devices use Deep Packet Inspection, DPI, a
technology employed by many western Internet Service Providers, to
manage network traffic and suppress unwanted connections.
Civic groups kick against DPI because,
they say, it makes it possible for censors to look into every single
Internet Protocol packet and subject it to special treatment based on
content (censored or banned words) or type (email, VoIP or BitTorrent
Protocol).
DPI not only threatens the principle of
Net Neutrality and the privacy of users, civic groups say, it makes
single users identifiable and, in countries that flout the rule of law
and violate human rights, often exposes them to arbitrary imprisonment,
violence or even torture.
While details of the Blue Coat contract
appears to have managed to evade scrutiny up till this point, PREMIUM
TIMES sources say the Elbit annunciation of the contract, opaque as it
was, terribly rattled top administration officials – from the presidency
to the National Security Adviser’s Office, and the National Assembly.
“The presidency had wanted this contract
to be a top secret,” said one of our sources. “The presidency did not
envisage that Elbit was going to make it public. Monitoring computers
and Internet use is a contentious issue and the National Security
Adviser had tried to keep the contract secret.”
Elbit says it will take it two years to
complete the project, by which time it claimed, the administration will
have “a highly advanced end-to-end solution, [to] supports every stage
of the intelligence process, including the collection of the data from
multiple sources, databases and sensors, processing of the information,
supporting intelligence personnel in the analysis and evaluation of the
information and disseminating the intelligence to the intended
recipient…[that] will be integrated with various data sources, including
Elbit Systems’ Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) solution and Elbit
Systems’ PC Surveillance Systems (PSS), an advance solution for covert
intelligence gathering.”
The administration had indicated in the
2013 budget that it would procure a Wise Intelligence Network Harvest
Analyzer System, Open Source Internet Monitoring System and Personal
Internet Surveillance System at a cost of N9.496 Billion ($61.26
million).
Now that the contract has been awarded
to Elbit for about $40million, it is unclear if the National Assembly
will raise questions as to what becomes of the extra $21million
earmarked for the project.
Investigations indicate that in awarding
the contract to the Israeli firm, no tenders or calls for bids were
made just as there were no public announcements. The contract was
awarded following a proposal from a single vendor who dictated the
contract sum and the terms of the contract.
The procedure for public procurement of services as stipulated by the Bureau of Public Procurement
(BPP), the Nigerian agency charged with the duty of ensuring
transparency in all matters concerning government contracts, were
largely ignored. In addition, there are no public records indicating
that the BPP approved this contract.
The manner of award directly contravenes
the 2007 Public Procurement Act. While the Act gives room for single
source contracts, the Elbit contract met none of the requirements under
which such special contracts could be awarded.
Section 47 (3) (iii) of the 2007 Act
stipulates that single source contracts are to be awarded in emergency
situations such as “natural disasters or a financial crisis”.
Presidential spokespersons, Reuben
Abati, and Doyin Okupe were not available for comments Wednesday. They
didn’t answer or return calls seeking comments.
Calls to Elbit’s headquarters in Haifa, Israel, were also unanswered.
Shari Clarkson, a spokesperson at the
company’s subsidiary in the United States declined comments on the
contract saying only Dalia Rosen, a spokesperson based in Israel, could
comment. Rosen’s phone was unanswered.
