US spies on Nigerian security agencies

Indications emerged on Saturday that the United States has been spying on the Nigeria's security agencies, especially the State Security Service, and probably the Presidency.

In a report published in New York Times, Edward Snowden, an American computer specialist, who worked for the US Central Intelligence Agency and as a contractor with the US National Security Agency, stated that Nigeria's SSS was one of the security agencies across the globe that the N.S.A. had been listening in on.

He said briefs on the information gleaned from intercepting of telephone conversations and hacking of computers of the SSS, other security agencies in Nigeria and other countries are delivered to the office of the US President, Barrack Obama every morning.

"By many accounts, the agency provides more than half of the intelligence nuggets delivered to the White House early each morning in the President's Daily Brief - a measure of success for American spies. One document boasts that listening in on Nigerian State Security Service had provided items for the briefing "nearly two dozen" times. In every international crisis, American policy makers look to the N.S.A. for inside information," Snowden told New York Times.

The release of documents that proved that the NSA had been eavesdropping on the communications of world leaders, including US allies, had caused diplomatic rows, with Germany and some other countries protesting.

Snowden also noted that the NSA had obtained thousands of classified documents, containing secrets of governments around the world, pointing to a possibility that it might have obtained secret documents of the Federal Government of Nigeria, or tapped President Goodluck Jonathan's phone conversations.

Snowden, who is on a temporary political asylum in Russia, disclosed classified details of several top-secret United States, Israeli, and British government mass surveillance programmes to the press.

He started releasing the NSA's documents in June and the documents he has released so far show that the US has been spying most countries in the world.

by Allwell Okpi (PUNCH NEWSPAPER)

Every house is a local government

The Nigerian constitution states as one of the fundamental rights of an individual; the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, this I would say is underutilized by the residents of Oshodi, by and large citizens of Nigeria.  Every individual is a product of their environment, that being said a depraved and insensitive government is borne of the insensitivity of its subjects. When we fail to hold ourselves accountable for inaction then we have no right to blame the government of our locality for its inefficiency. Our inability to see the desolation of our infrastructures as a worm infested wood that needs to be addressed with all urgency makes us blind that posterity will judge us  in a future that is closer than we expect. When we fold our arms and send our children to private schools that are surrounded by public schools with broken walls and dilapidated buildings we feel we are richer than our neighbour, not knowing that a city with one rich man and a thousand poor men is still regarded as a whole, a poor city.

The reality that we are the local government and not the structure that houses the people we choose to represent us is most times farfetched. Let us not be deceived by our own self-righteous hypocrisy, the people we elect only reflects to a large extent who we truly are because every house is a local government structured to function as an edifice that points its location to every passer-by asking them to behold “I live in this neighbourhood”. Every individual; the local government chairman that say it’s not my business let me just do something so that they won’t say I didn’t do, a meagre input to reflect the shadow of my true capacity.

Oshodi why is it that the road that is named after you continually disgraces you showing your shameful undergarment for visitors to see and your children cry they have abandoned the road. Is it not you who have collected the contract to construct and repair roads? Who has told a lie to you that the only people to blame are the officials in charge? When you indiscriminately dump waste in your drainages and the rains exposes the filth you fed the earth, you blame the government. When would you realize that the hand pointed at others in accusation points directly in your face?

When the election campaign team comes, and the right that is yours is sold for a cup of rice and a few currency of temporal value, do you not know that you sell the rights to conscience the constitution has earned you  for an instant gratification borne out of greed. When your freedom of thought becomes marred by the lack of fore sight constantly seared by your culpability in erring on hindsight, how can you do an oversight with a blurred vision?

2014 will creep on you faster than you can fathom but will you realize that it’s not about the politician they will always come and go but Oshodi will remain because “Every house is a local government”.

By Rekia Olowu for Inside Oshodi Newspaper Read more www.zymogenslimited.com