Israeli weapons firm arrives in Nigeria to install Internet surveillance system

Staff from the Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit  have arrived in Nigeria to begin installing a mass Internet surveillance system that has been the focus of national outrage since first revealed in April, according to the Abuja-based newspaper Premium Times.

Oglala Emanuel, who broke the original story in April, writes, “As the world battles the American government over its invasive Prism project that has snooped on Americans and other world leaders, workers of Israeli defense electronics firm, Elbit Systems, have quietly landed in Abuja, to install a comprehensive spying facility that will help the Nigerian government spy on all online activities by its citizens.”

As part of the sale, a “team of about twenty Nigerian intelligence officers are currently training” at Elbit’s headquarters in Haifa to operate the Wise Intelligent Technology (WIT) system.

Nigeria, like most states, already had significant capacity for mass data collection. In addition to enhancing data collection, the WIT system allows the Abuja authorities to analyze that data. 

The website Israel’s Homeland Security notes that “In recent years the traditional structured databases of the past are being complemented by much bigger repositories of unstructured data, information that has never been tapped before — video surveillance, satellite images, emails, social networks, Internet pages, open source news, voice and data interception etc. Managing these new repositories requires new systems, storing huge volumes of information and able to retrieve specific pieces of data in an efficient and timely manner.”

As well as surveillance equipment, Elbit makes drones that the Israeli army has used when attacking civilians in Gaza. 

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