'He said Victor was shot': Brother grapples with loss after Nigeria protest deaths

It was after midnight in Lagos on Oct. 21 when Elisha Sunday said he got a call from his brother Victor's phone: a stranger told him Victor had been shot dead by soldiers at Lekki Toll Gate.

After a sleepless night, he said he went out to find the body but roads towards the upscale neighbourhood were blocked and he heard shooting so turned back.

Elisha, 24, said he later saw pictures of his 27-year-old brother on Facebook, draped in a Nigerian flag and covered in blood. After that, the trail went cold.

Protesters objecting to police brutality and demanding wide-ranging reforms had held demonstrations across Nigeria for nearly two weeks when witnesses in the Lekki district of Lagos said soldiers and police opened fire on them on Oct. 20.

Rights group Amnesty International said 12 protesters were killed in two districts that night, prompting the worst unrest since Nigeria returned to civilian rule in 1999.

Both the military and police have denied the shootings. The government ordered state governments to set up judicial panels to investigate police abuse allegations. Witness testimonies to a Lagos judicial panel said the bodies were trucked away.

Victor's best friend, David Friday, said Victor went to Lekki because it looked fun, with food, drinks and a party atmosphere; a gardener and amateur comedian, he was not politically engaged.

"Right now, I am alone," said Elisha, a softly spoken 24-year-old. "There is nowhere to find him."

Few families have come forward publicly to demand answers about their loved ones, and activists say some are too afraid to reclaim the bodies of those killed that night, leaving them with painful questions about their fate nearly two months on.

The Lagos state government has said those who lost family members between Oct. 19 and 27 should go to Lagos State University Teaching Hospital to try to identify their bodies.

Elisha said he was turned away from the hospital three times, first for not having proper documentation, then because a hospital doctor had not accompanied him to the mortuary in nearby Yaba and finally because the chief doctor was not available.

He said he fears retaliation from the government, but will keep trying for the sake of his mother and three sisters in the southeastern state of Akwa Ibom.

"My mother wants my brother, just to take him home and bury him as we're supposed to do," he said.

Lagos State Health Commissioner Akin Abayomi said it was standard procedure when anyone died in "unnatural circumstances" for the state to keep bodies until relatives proved their relationship.

He said he could not say how many were there, how they were killed or how many families had collected their relatives' remains.

State government spokesman Gbenga Omotoso said the deaths were related to the "anarchy" around the Lekki incident, including "acts of violence which the perpetrators used the genuine protests to cover".

Whether Victor's body is there was between his family and the doctors, he said.

By Libby George 

Reuters

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Nigerian intelligence bought tool to spy on citizens

Nigeria’s Defence Intelligence Agency has acquired equipment that it can use to spy on its citizens’ calls and text messages, according to a report by the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, which researches digital surveillance, security, privacy and accountability.

The report, titled Running in Circles: Uncovering the Clients of Cyber-espionage Firm Circles, said a telecom surveillance company by the name of Circles has been helping state security apparatuses across 25 countries, including Nigeria, to spy on the communications of opposition figures, journalists, and protesters.

The Citizen Lab report also said Circles was affiliated with Tel Aviv-based NSO Group, an Israeli hacker-for-hire company, whose software, Pegasus, has allegedly been used by several governments to spy on dissidents by taking control of their smartphone, its cameras and microphones, and mining the user’s personal data.

Circles, on the other hand, is known for selling systems to exploit Signalling System 7 (SS7) vulnerabilities and claims to have sold the technology to several countries, according to the report.

SS7 is a system that allows one mobile network to connect with another.

“Unlike NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware, the SS7 mechanism by which Circles’ product reportedly operates does not have an obvious signature on a target’s phone,” explained the report.

The report indicated that Pegasus and Circles products could possibly be integrated.

But there is limited information on how the Circles system integrates with NSO Group’s flagship Pegasus spyware, though a former NSO Group employee told Motherboard that Pegasus had an “awful integration with Circles” and that Circles had “exaggerated their system’s abilities,” according to the report.

Nigerian governors using Circles’ product

According to the report, at least two entities in Nigeria have deployed Circles’ product.

“One system may be operated by the same entity as one of the Nigerian customers of the FinFisher spyware that we detected in December 2014,” said the report.

“The other client appears to be the Nigerian Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), as its firewall IPs are in AS37258, a block of IP addresses registered to “HQ Defence Intelligence Agency Asokoro, Nigeria, Abuja,” it added.

The report also referred to an investigation by online newspaper Premium Times, which concluded that the governors of two Nigerian states “had purchased systems from Circles to spy on their political opponents”.

“In Delta State, Premium Times reports that the system was installed … and operated by employees of the governor, rather than police,” said the report.

“In Bayelsa State, the governor reportedly used the Circles system to spy on his opponent in an election, as well as his opponent’s wife and aides.

“The investigation also found that the two Circles systems were imported without the proper authorisations from Nigeria’s Office of the National Security Adviser,” the report added.
 

Hacking software

Earlier this year, an Israeli court rejected a request to strip the NSO Group of its export licence over the suspected use of the company’s technology to target journalists and dissidents worldwide.

The case, brought by Amnesty International in January, called on the court to prevent NSO from selling its technology abroad, especially to repressive governments.


While NSO does not disclose its clients, the Israeli company’s cellphone-hacking software, Pegasus, has been linked to political surveillance in Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, according to Citizen Lab.

Last year, WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook Inc, sued NSO in a US federal court in San Francisco, accusing it of helping government spies break into the phones of about 1,400 users across four continents.

Targets of the alleged hacking spree included diplomats, political dissidents, journalists and senior government officials.

NSO denied the allegations, saying it only “provides technology to licensed government intelligence and law enforcement agencies to help them fight terrorism and serious crime”.

Al Jazeera

US Adds Nigeria to Religious Freedom Blacklist

The United States on Monday placed Nigeria on a religious freedom blacklist, paving the way for potential sanctions if it does not improve its record.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo designated the U.S. ally — for the first time — as a "Country of Particular Concern" for religious freedom, alongside nations that include China, Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

Pompeo did not elaborate on the reasons for including Nigeria, which has a delicate balance between Muslims and Christians.

But U.S. law requires such designations for nations that either engage in or tolerate "systematic, ongoing, egregious violations of religious freedom."

Pompeo notably did not include India, which has a growing relationship with Washington, and was infuriated by a recommendation from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom to include the secular but Hindu-majority nation over what it called a sharp downward turn under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Other nations on the blacklist are Eritrea, Myanmar, North Korea, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

Areas of concern

Pompeo removed from a second tier watchlist both Uzbekistan and Sudan, whose relations with the United States have rapidly warmed after the ousting of dictator Omar al-Bashir and its recent agreement to recognize Israel.

On Nigeria, an annual State Department report published earlier this year took note of concerns both at the federal and state levels.

It pointed to the mass detention of members of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, a Shi'ite Muslim group that has been at loggerheads with the government for decades and was banned by a court.

The group has taken inspiration from Iran, ordinarily a major target of President Donald Trump's administration.

However, Nigeria has been widely criticized for its treatment of the movement, including in a 2015 clash in which hundreds were said to have died.

The State Department report highlighted the arrests of Muslims for eating in public in Kano state during Ramadan, when Muslims are supposed to fast during daylight hours.

It also took note of the approval of a bill in Kaduna state to regulate religious preaching.

Improve or face sanctions

While the designations relate to government actions, the State Department has already listed Nigeria's Boko Haram as a terrorist group.

The militants began an insurgency in 2009 in northeastern Nigeria that has since spread to neighboring countries, killing more than 36,000 people and forcing 3 million to flee their homes, according to the United Nations.

Under U.S. law, nations on the blacklist must make improvements or face sanctions, including losses of U.S. government assistance, although the administration can waive actions. 

AFP

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U.S. removes visa reciprocity fees for Nigerians

The United States lowered the fee paid by Nigerian citizens to obtain a visa after it announced the removal of reciprocity fees for Nigerians more than a year after the West African country implemented a similar move.

“The U.S. Mission to Nigeria is pleased to announce the elimination of visa reciprocity fees, effective immediately. We thank @GovNigeria for its partnership in eliminating these reciprocity fees,” the U.S. Mission to Nigeria tweeted.

“Visa application fees remain at $160,” it added.

The fee, also known as the visa issuance fee, is charged in addition to the nonimmigrant visa application fee.

The US government had imposed the reciprocity fee in August last year after Nigeria failed to change its fee structure for US citizen visa applicants despite engagements on the same since early 2018.

However, shortly after that action, Nigeria lowered the fee paid by US citizens to obtain a visa in line with the government’s reciprocity policy following a recommendation by a committee.

The Nigerian government now required American citizens to pay $160 (currently just over 60,000 Nigerian Naira) down from $180 (about 68,500 Nigerian Naira).

Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the announcement as a “positive development”, adding that the removal of the fee came into effect from December 3.

It also clarified that the removal of the reciprocity fee did not mean that Nigerians applying for a visa to the U.S. would now not pay any visa fees.

By David Ochieng Mbewa

CGTN

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