Personnel records of former and current members of Nigeria’s SSS (Our
top domestic spy agency), including home addresses and names of
immediate family members, leaked onto the Internet in a threatening
message that claimed to come from Boko Haram (a radical Islamist sect
that’s killed hundreds of people this year alone). How are they going to
protect us when they cannot protect themselves? They are busy drinking
Gulder and eating point and kill fish, meanwhile their personal details
are flying around the internet...Thanks to AP and Yahoo who broke the news...Smh
The leak of personal data of more than 60 past and current employees of
Nigeria’s State Security Service remained easily accessible on the
Internet for days and had details about the agency’s director-general,
including his mobile phone number, bank account particulars and contact
information for his son. Many of agents listed who could be reached by
the AP said they received no official warning from the spy agency that
their information had been posted online nor been otherwise alerted. The
material has been deleted from the comment section of a website, but
the security breach astonished veterans and calls into question whether
Nigeria’s intelligence community, whose agents already have released
suspected terrorists out of religious and ethnic sympathies, are too
compromised from within to stop the violence now plaguing Africa’s most
populous nation.
“This is a national embarrassment,” said one Nigerian intelligence
official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as information about the
leak was not to have been made public.
Marilyn Ogar, a spokeswoman for the State Security Service, did not
immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday about the leak.
The State Security Service, created in 1986 by then-military ruler Gen.
Ibrahim Babangida, monitors domestic dissent in Nigeria, an oil-rich
nation of more than 160 million people. Though geared toward stopping
terrorism and destabilizing coups, the agency routinely faces criticism
for targeting government critics. In Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, the
agency operates out of cars made to look like the many green taxis that
roam the streets. Plain-clothed agents of the service routinely question
foreign journalists at airports, border crossings and on city streets
if they see reporters conducting interviews. Agents carrying assault
rifles often guard major events in the country.
Many agents for the typically secretive agency are preoccupied with
concealing their identities, as most try to blend unnoticed into
society.
The information leak came in two postings earlier this month on a
website that provides rewritten news on Nigeria. The first posting
threatened to kill agents of the State Security Service on behalf of
Boko Haram, a radical Islamist sect responsible for more than 660
killings this year alone in Nigeria. The second posting simply offered a
block of text containing biographical and other details about the
agents.
Though the comments have been removed, the AP is not identifying the
website involved as cached versions of the comments remain online and
intelligence service agents have been killed by Boko Haram members in
the past.
The list includes former and current agents across the country,
including Director-General Ekpeyong Ita. Those reached by the AP who
were willing to talk expressed disbelief that sensitive information like
that could make its way to the Internet.
“I was shocked to see my details posted on the Internet,” said one
former agent, who declined to be named out of safety concerns. “I’ve not
heard anything from anybody. I was surprised that such information
could be leaked.”
Another man on the list said he simply once served as a doctor to help
the agency on an on-call basis only. The list appeared to include
lower-ranking agents, as well as one-time state directors for the
agency.
Some of those contacted suggested that the list appeared to come from
the agency’s pension department, as it mostly included retirees and
listed bank account information for nearly all those named.
The release of the information comes as Nigeria’s intelligence agencies
have made a series of blunders in trying to fight Boko Haram in Africa’s
most populous country, with some likely influenced by ethnic or
religious sentiments. Intelligence agencies allegedly released a
suspected Islamic radical in 2007 who later masterminded Boko Haram’s
suicide car bombing of the U.N. headquarters in August 2011 that killed
at least 25 people and wounded more than 100 others, officials
previously told the AP. A leaked U.S. diplomatic cable also show U.S.
officials complained in 2008 about Nigeria’s government quietly
releasing other suspects into the custody of Islamic leaders as part of a
program it called “Perception Management.”
Another U.S. diplomatic cable complains that State Security Service
agents nearly let a suspected bomb maker trained by the Somali terror
group al-Shabab onto an international flight, despite an Interpol notice
for his arrest. The agents who allegedly tried to release Mohamed
Ibrahim Ahmed “not only knew about the Interpol notice, but simply said
they did not want to hold him any longer,” the February 2010 cable read.
Ahmed, an Eritrean, pleaded guilty to charges in June in a U.S. federal
court that he supported terrorism by associating with al-Shabab, a
terror group with links to al-Qaida. He faces up to 10 years in prison.
Most of those on the leaked list of agents reached by the AP said no one
from the federal government or the spy agency warned them that their
personnel information had appeared on the Internet. Instead, colleagues
and other former agents called each other to spread the news and later
contacted the State Security Service themselves to report the breach.
It is unclear if the person who posted the information online really
does have ties to Boko Haram, which has targeted security officials in
the past. Violence has been centered mostly in the country’s Muslim
north. One retired agent who spoke to AP said he was grateful he lives
in the largely Christian south, away from the sect’s attacks.
“It’s worrying that they have access to that,” the agent said. “Those
living in Abuja (and the north) are the ones who should living in fear
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