A dripping tap
The United States intelligence community monitored Nigeria’s just-concluded national elections and tracked top-level talks within the…
The United States intelligence community monitored Nigeria’s just-concluded national elections and tracked top-level talks within the Department of State Services (DSS), according to leaked files seen by Human Angle. The briefing slides were part of the highly classified documents circulated online recently that revealed information about the US spying on allies and adversaries. Though Washington has not confirmed the authenticity of the documents, it said it was “actively reviewing” the issue. One of the top-secret briefs obtained revealed that the Nigerian security services were aware of the malfunction of some of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) prior to the elections.
A major reason why the intelligence leak has not garnered the furore that the Snowden saga generated when it was revealed that the Obama administration actively spied on foes and allies alike, including then German Chancellor Angela Merkel, is that in the present circumstances, the leaks have a more delicate imperative: the success of Ukraine in light of Western military support in its war with Russia. The focus has been on Ukraine’s plans for a spring offensive against Russian positions in and around Bakhmut as the war has become a war of attrition. Further, the world seems distracted with even more pressing domestic and geopolitical matters ― that often require American help ― that American spying is not met with righteous indignation but is seen as a small price for short-term salvation. Nigeria falls within this category. In the lead-up to the 2015 elections, President Goodluck Jonathan famously quipped that “America will know,” when asked about US concerns over the Chibok girls’ abduction, which implied that the global power had maintained active espionage in Nigeria’s domestic affairs for a long time, and previously leaked diplomatic cables corroborate the sentiment. WikiLeaks showed that the United States saw the 2001 Jos riots due to a political fallout between Vice President Atiku Abubakar and President Olusegun Obasanjo in the wake of some northern states adopting the Sharia legal code. The latest cache of classified documents shows that the 2023 elections elicited enough international interest, so much so that a congratulatory message from Joe Biden to Bola Tinubu would be seen as endorsing a flawed vote. The US intelligence community’s espionage activity on the elections did not have to go through such hoops. In 2019, President Muhammadu Buhari signed the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Law, allowing Nigeria to assist foreign governments in surveillance and intercepting suspects’ communications during criminal investigations. While this law, on paper, guarantees official assistance, it also provides fertile ground for abuse by bad actors. It, for example, explains the emerging wiretapping scandal around the Labour Party candidate Peter Obi after a purported recording of a conversation with popular Christian minister David Oyedepo surfaced. In the final analysis, the Nigerian government has not taken digital security seriously, subjecting private and public infrastructure to attacks. The US spy story, among other things, shows that while Nigeria’s intelligence-gathering capability is sufficiently developed to counter domestic threats, it has neglected the development of a robust counterintelligence architecture and is now paying for it embarrassingly. When paired with the American state’s capacity in technology, it is easy to see why it would not be difficult to bug the communication channels in a country that cannot deal with Boko Haram terrorists who use motorcycles. It is one thing to spy on sovereign countries; it is quite another thing to use that material as leverage in demanding that nation-states make significant changes. Saudi Arabia sending assassins to kill dissident voices did not stop Washington from making up with the country after initially taking a confrontational stance that only forced the Saudis deeper into a more committed arrangement with China. Put another way, nothing meaningful will come from this matter. The US already knows what it needs to know about the quality (or lack thereof) of the recent elections in Nigeria, but it is unlikely to do more than offer a cold shoulder to a Bola Tinubu administration. Even that could risk forcing Abuja into the arms of a China that offers more financial support and less judgement on issues related to human rights and elections. Much like intelligence estimates, the geopolitical assessment for Washington is clear.