FG monitors Nigerians’ Facebook, Twitter accounts

The Federal Government has been monitoring the social media accounts of Nigerians who are suspected of having links with various terrorist groups, including Boko Haram and the Islamic State of Syria and Iraq,  according to a report  by SUNDAY PUNCH.

It was  learnt that through covert operations, which have been going on for a while, security agencies hack into the Facebook and Twitter accounts of those they are monitoring.

The move, it was learnt, was meant to frustrate terrorist attacks on the country.

The project, which is costing the country millions of dollars, is being managed by the Office of the National Security Adviser.

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Multiple sources, who spoke to  on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to inform the press about the security checks, stated that the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan approved the request by security agencies to spy on targeted sections of the population, mainly religious extremists and radicalised individuals.

It was gathered that the project is being coordinated by some foreign firms, including an Israeli firm, Elbit System.

Local espionage involves hacking of phones, email accounts, social media accounts and bugging of telephone conversations of persons of interest.

A source said, “The surveillance system is not being used to target everyone, as people may want to believe. It is only deployed to get intelligence on specific targets because it would be hard and difficult to use such system to spy on all Nigerians; the amount of data would be too huge and staggering for the assessors to sort and manage.

“Basically, the system is used to hack into emails and phones of targets, and the targets are those who are suspected of having ties with terrorists, whether Boko Haram, ISIS or any other criminal element.”

It was also learnt that the system had greatly assisted security agencies to nip in the bud and also frustrate many terror plots and attacks across the country.