While the House of Reps investigative panel dilly dallies on its planned investigations, the Internet Spy device will be installed and “Big Brother” will come alive, somewhere in Abuja, soon. Americans and other world leaders, workers of Israeli defence electronics firm, Elbit Systems, have quietly landed in Abuja, to install a comprehensive spying facility that will help the Nigerian government spy on all online activities by its citizens.
The installation will go ahead despite public outcry and an ongoing legislative probe of the project. The installation is also taking place in complete disregard of the National Assembly which ordered the government to suspend all actions on the contract pending the outcome of a planned investigation. The presidency had mulled cancellation of the contract after it summoned Elbit Officials, accusing them of not being discreet enough in the handling of the contract.
The Goodluck Jonathan administration secretly, and in open violation of lawful contracting procedures, awarded the Israeli firm, 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 it won the contract back in April, in a global press release, where 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 … for Intelligence Analysis and Cyber Defense.” Sources within the administration informed PREMIUM TIMES that the officials arrived Abuja over the weekend and had would instal the “big brother” device at the headquarters of the National Intelligence Agency in Abuja. A team of about 20 Nigerian intelligence officers are currently training in Haifa, Israel – headquarters of Elbit Systems – and are expected to run the spying equipment after its installation. The first batch of the intelligence trainees are due back in the country next week, our sources say. 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. The expected implication of the “Big Brother” device, when successful installed, has rattled Nigeria’s growing online community, the civil society, top officials of the Jonathan’s administration who were not privy to the contract, and members of the National Assembly. Many of them, who spoke to PREMIUM TIMES on conditions of anonymity, raised concern about the invasion of citizens’ privacy as well as the handling of Nigeria’s intelligence gathering process to citizens of another country, Israel.
How Much? Elbit Systems admit it is receiving $40 million for the project. But our sources say that is not all the money that was released for the project. 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, based on an agreed official exchange rate of N155 per dollar). The fate of the balance of $21.26 million from the entire sum earmarked for the project is unclear at the moment. But our sources say it is now clear that the contract was initially awarded a security firm owned by a Nigerian politician and businessman, whose name we are withholding because of our ongoing investigation into the contract. The businessman and another henchman of President Jonathan are the superintendents of the project, our sources said.
Disregarding National Assembly.
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