A new report by the Institute of Development Studies contains some startling revelations. According to the study, Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, has spent a whopping $2.7 billion on surveillance equipment contracts between 2013 and 2022. When broken down, this amounts to $12 per citizen.
The report further stated that Nigeria’s expenditure on surveillance technology surpassed that of the other countries on the continent. Successive governments have allocated funds to surveillance technology for various purposes including internet intervention, mobile interception, and social media monitoring. The country’s government has hired contractors from many countries including Israel, Cyprus, the UK, USA, and Bulgaria.
Entitled “Mapping the Supply of Surveillance Technologies to Africa”, the report alleges that the surveillance equipment has been utilized for spying on citizens, an act that contravenes the Nigerian constitution and intentional laws.
“Section 37 of the Nigerian constitution guarantees that the government will protect citizens’ rights to privacy of communication. However, there is copious evidence that multiple state agencies use a growing range of digital surveillance technologies to spy on citizens, in breach of these constitutional guarantees,” said the report.
It is worth mentioning that while the Constitution protects citizens’ right to communication, a particular regulation allows state agencies to willfully use surveillance technologies on people. Known as the Lawful Interception of Communications Act, state agencies have leveraged this law to not only conduct surveillance operations but intercept citizens’ communications, whether phone calls or social media, with compliance from telecom companies.
Also worthy of note is that state agencies have targeted political opposition groups, journalists, and civil activists via surveillance technology. In 2020, Solomon Akuma, a pharmacist, criticized then-president Muhammadu Buhari and late Chief of Staff Abba Kyari. Akuma was arrested by the police in April 2020.
In a blatant show of disregard for the human right to expression, he was made to await trial for three months, all the while kept under guard. When Akuma got his day in court, charges like terrorism, sedition, criminal intimidation of the president, and threat to the life of the president were levelled against him. After spending nearly three years in custody, he was freed in January 2023.
Read more: South Africa and Kenya have better digital quality of life than Nigeria- Surfshark study
High taste for surveillance in Nigeria despite economic woes
Nigeria’s economy has been at its worst point for many years, forcing many small businesses to close and foreign companies to close shop and take their businesses elsewhere. Aside from these trends, the cost of living has surged over the past few years. This has discouraged foreign investments too. Given the ugly state of affairs, it is shocking to see that past governments have dedicated huge sums of money to surveillance. Moreover, the surveillance is not targeted to secure citizens but to spy on them.
While the constitution kicks against this, the Lawful Interception of Communication Act complicates matters. Perhaps, lawmakers should focus on introducing a single regulation that provides clarity on surveillance. This is a goal that civil society groups and other concerned parties must work together to achieve.
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