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.
Source: PT Ng
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.
Source: PT Ng
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