Mass surveillance: NASS allegedly approves N4.87bn for NIA

…To monitor, track calls, WhatsApp messages

…SERAP to challenge blatant violations of Nigerians’ rights

…Ubani, Akingbolu say approval unbelievable, illegal

By Uthman Salami

The National Assembly have reportedly made the approval of N4.87 billion for the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) to intercept, track, monitor calls and messages on mobile devices like WhatsApp.

A credible source disclosed this to the Nigerian NewsDirect yesterday.

The program which is expected to revolve “autonomous collection of massive data sets,” and analysis driven by artificial intelligence, according to countries that have the program in place.

WhatsApp recently in a statement in the U.S said, “The government cannot read personal messages on WhatsApp. No third parties except for the sender and the receiver of the messages can read the messages which get forwarded on WhatsApp.”

This is why End-to-end encryption WhatsApp is installed to ensure that messages can only be read by the sender and their receiver.

In a swift reaction yesterday, the Social Economy Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), said it would “challenge the unlawful surveillance and blatant violation of Nigerians’ right to privacy.”

Meanwhile, prominent lawyers and human activists in Nigeria have kicked against this decision by NASS.

Barrister Monday Ubani, while speaking to our correspondent through a  phone call, described the alleged approval as unbelievable.

According to him, “That is an infringement on the right to privacy. No persons has any right to monitor any person’s calls. If they do it, It is clearly illegal. But for you to approve that amount of money from taxpayers’ money in order to monitor Nigerians’ call is clearly a highest level of infraction and violation of Nigerians’ rights.

“And I don’t think it is right. I don’t believe this news is true. I don’t believe that NASS will be so ignorant of the law that they would approve money to monitor people’s call.

“I won’t believe it is true until National assembly confirms that they have actually approved huge amount of money to do this. This is clearly unconstitutional. Everyone in this country is entitled to their privacy. It’s a violation of people’s rights. It is clearly unbelievable.”

On his part, Barr. Akingbolu said the alleged approval of such amount of money is totally unconstitutional, saying that it is a violation of freedom of speech as enshrined in the constitution of Federal Republic of Nigeria.

In his words, “It is uncalled for. The freedom of information is a guaranteed right by everybody. To now say that the content of what everything anybody sends will be visible to the government is a clear  violation of the rights of the people to privacy.

“If you do this, it means the content of whatever you say to anyone is with government agency as it is open to everyone. I think government would do well to listen to the call of Nigerians because everybody has condemned this move.

“It is uncalled for. You can’t do that in this 21st century. This is not the right time as we have other pressing challenges that government should look into,” he concluded.