Social Significance of the Study

Annually, October 1st is marked with fanfare in Nigeria, a national

tradition since she won self-rule status from the British colonial rulers in

1960. But, unlike past editions, the 2010 independence celebration, which

was the 50th - a milestone considering the country’s checkered political

history - was engulfed in the flames of deaths and controversies that shook

the fabric of Africa’s most populous nation. A sad one for her fledgling

democracy, Nigeria’s golden jubilee, which was elaborately organized to

advertize the nation’s scanty gains of nationhood, suddenly turned into a

moment of grief and mourning, spewing blood, tears and sorrow. After an

explosion of twin bomb blasts near the venue of the carnival-like

celebrations in the nation’s capital in Abuja, 15 innocent civilians were

confirmed dead and many more maimed, including security operatives who

were on hand to protect the citizenry.1

The dastardly act, an unfitting national birthday gift, did not just foul

the festive air in many homes across the vast country; it also cast an

unfortunately added dent on the image of a country that had had its share of

1
Though the state security service confirmed that nine people met their untimely
deaths, the media reported a larger picture of casualties. Apart from the dead, the
tragedy also left many passers-by maimed and wounded. See Anayochukwu Agbo,
Playing Politics with Bombs, TELL Magazine, October 11, 2010; see
http://www.tellng.com/
bad news internationally some weeks before the ceremonies, having been

dubbed a time-bomb as a politically unstable nation.2 Pronto, the security

agencies expectedly swung into action, hurling some Nigerians into

detention as suspected perpetrators of the heinous crime. As the public mood

ran riot during the ensuing manhunt, the stream of things changed with

break-neck pace when Raymond Dokpesi, a media mogul, was arrested and

grilled in connection with the unfortunate incident. His arrest and

interrogation was on the strength of text messages allegedly linking him

with some of the characters suspected to be the perpetrators of the bombings.

Unsurprisingly in a country where ethnic rivalry or mutual distrust among

her predatory political elites is a way of life, divisive political connotations,

especially the usual north-south dichotomy sentiments, soon crept into a

national security challenge that deserved national solidarity to unlock, thus

refreshing the wound of age-old leadership acrimonies stymieing genuine

development in Nigeria’s nascent democracy.

Suddenly, even without any evidence to back same, four presidential

2
As if endued with some gift of prescience, John Campbell, former US ambassador to
Nigeria, in one of his numerous acerbic commentaries on the state of affairs in
Nigeria, had predicted that the forthcoming general elections in Africa’s most
populous country could plunge the nation back on the brink of collapse. Though
many top Nigerian public officials quickly labeled him a prophet of doom and allayed
mounting fears, the aftermath of the bomb blast exposed the fragility of Nigeria’s
stability and unity. Read further in John Campbell, Nigeria on the brink: what happens
if the 2011 election fails? See
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/66746/john-campbell/nigeria-on-the-
brink?cid=soc-twitter-in-nigeria-nigeria_on_the_brink-090910
aspirants from a section of the country had teamed up to accuse the

incumbent president, who hails from another section of the country, of

witch-hunting one of them and, invariably, the section of the country where

they all hail from.3 Although Dokpesi has since regained his freedom, other

suspects in the unfolding saga are not that lucky, with some of them now

answering terrorism charges in the court. Relying on text messages and

voice calls that allegedly transpired between the mobile phones of those

arrested, the security agencies pounced on the suspected bombers, saying

there was a nexus of clandestine operations and connivance between the

suspects and their financiers.4 In other words, the much-trumpeted feat of

police investigations, as both plausible and doubtful as it seems, is

dependent on the alleged text messages and call logs extracted from the cell

phones of those fingered as masterminds of the bomb explosions.

Perhaps because of the weighty national security issues involved,

3
A vociferous sectional political pressure group from the home-base of the four
presidential aspirants issued an ultimatum for the sitting president to resign and
even threatened to call on the National Assembly to impeach him if he failed to do as
requested. Read more in Ayodele Akinkuotu, From the Editor, TELL Magazine,
October 11, 2010; see http://www.tellng.com/
4
In a manner that raised the nation’s political temperature, Dokpesi, who is also
director-general of campaign organization of one of the four presidential of northern
Nigeria extraction contesting the presidential ticket of the ruling Peoples Democratic
Party with the incumbent president, alleged persecution.
http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Home/5626699-
146/dokpesi_arrested_over_fridays_bomb-blast.csp or
http://www.saharareporters.com/news-page/abuja-bomb-blast-ibbs-campaign-
director-raymond-dokpesi-arrested%E2%80%A6fg-threatened-nationalize
there seems a conspiracy of silence on the part of rights advocacy groups as

to the proprietary of a government agency invading the private sanctuary of

some citizens’ mobile phones in an attempt to obtain information. But if it is

open to conjectures as to whether the due process of the law was satisfied

before obtaining an information that is supposed to be a private data, what is

however not in doubt is the fact that the last is yet to be heard on the roiling

saga, for the outcome of police efforts will certainly trigger streams of issues

that may dominate national discourse. More than before, not a few will want

the court to determine the fate of the detained suspects as to whether the

security agencies of government have the legal power to clamp people into

detention on the strength of information forcefully accessed through their

mobile phones.

Historically, that was not the first time there was media hoopla over

information trumped into the public domain from mobile phones of citizens

in the country. Before a controversial judgment was delivered in a

governorship election petition in 2008, some of the judges were accused of

‘unholy’ romance with one of the parties in the protracted dispute. In fact, it

was a huge national embarrassment when one of the leading weeklies

published a steaming story containing the alleged call logs and text

messages between the judges and the defendants. Rather than help
illuminate the haze of raging controversies, the published call logs spewed

further wave of endless debates and crises that are yet to be resolved - either

in the tribunal of public opinion or in the law court5.

Since the mobile phone frenzy hit Africa, the tenor of criminality has

changed, leaving many countries groaning under escalating mobile phone-

assisted crime wave. This is made possible because 97-99 per cent of mobile

phone users in Africa use pre-paid phones, which make it easier to use pre-

paid vouchers without any traceable or registered address6. From economic

and financial crimes to armed robbery and terrorism, it has been insecurity

galore for embattled citizens, even as it has also spelled a hectic time for law

enforcement agencies that are easily out-maneuvered by social miscreants.

In some parts of Nigeria, many school children, journalists, movie stars, and

oil workers, mainly expatriates, have fallen victims to kidnappers who

depend on mobile phones to negotiate their ransom7. With the proliferation

5
Despite threats by one of the accused parties to sue the publishers of the magazine,
no legal action was taken against the publication. Yet, the election petition that
triggered the brouhaha is yet to be resolved years after. Read further in
http://nm.onlinenigeria.com/templates/?a=14388 or Tunde Odesola in Osun
Tribunal: Myriad of litigations; see http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?
theartic=Art20080817030485
6
See a report by Reuters which was cited by the British Broadcasting Corporation,
BBC. Available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10366235 (accessed on November 15,
2010)
7
For some of reported cases of victims of kidnapping, see
http://www.newstimeafrica.com/archives/14282 (accessed on November 16, 2010)
of cell phones in Ghana, stolen and cloned phones are fast becoming new

tools for criminals, not only to conduct phone service but also using the

technology to carry out illegal activities in a manner that often outwits the

eagle eyes of security personnel8. It reached an alarming level recently when

the

The unpalatable story is almost the same in other West African countries

like Benin, Senegal, Togo, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Liberia, Sierra Leone,

The Gambia, Niger and Cote d’Ivoire. In fact, the spate of phone-enabled

crimes became so worrisome in the country that the American embassy in

Abidjan sent the following warning message to all prospective victims of

fraudsters in the West African sub-region9

All telephone numbers provided will be cell phones. In Cote d’Ivoire, all cell
phone numbers start with 05, 07, or 08. They do not generally provide
landline telephone numbers, since these numbers can be easily traced to a
physical location. Anyone in Cote d’Ivoire can easily purchase an
inexpensive cell phone on a street corner and then purchase anonymously a
pre-paid SIM card to operate their "business" out of this cell phone number,
without ever having to provide any subscriber information. If they believe
8
Expressing its concerns over the increasing frequency at which mobile phone is
being used to carry out criminal acts in Ghana, the Association of Independent Mobile
Phone and Credit Dealers, warned unsuspecting phone users to beware of con
masters who use camera phones to snap other people’s credit cards, which allow the
criminals to know the name of the card owner, card number and expiration date on
the card. For more detailed description of ways con artistes use to swindle phone
users in Ghana, see http://www.ghanabusinessnews.com/2010/10/04/mobile-phone-
dealers-condemn-use-of-cell-phones-in-crimes/ (accessed on November 15, 2010)
9
See http://abidjan.usembassy.gov/art_of_scam.html (accessed on November 15,
2010)
 that they are being traced, identified, or near arrest, they can abandon their
fake identities by tossing these pre-paid cell phone and any tools of their
trade into a public trashcan and walk away, thus protecting their true
identities.

Unfortunately, events in many other African states follow similar

unhealthy trend, differing only in intensity and magnitude. What however

provided the raw materials for this study is not the continent’s queer politics;

it is the role handsets play in escalating crime wave and the modus operandi

of the intelligence community and mobile technology regulatory institutions

in fixing the security conundrum besetting the vast region.

Properly x-rayed, the success story in the telecommunications sector

has triggered existential issues that need to engage the thinking of discerning

Africans. Across many African states, there are bourgeoning calls that all

mobile phone operators should register existing SIM cards - both those on

prepaid and the ones on contract - in the name and address of the user, while

new ones should not be activated without satisfying these conditions.10

When mobile technology was brought to the region in 1990s, African

governments made the fatal mistake of not compelling the operators to

10
For further readings, see Ayantokun Oluwaseun, NCC Unveils Plans to End
Kidnapping in Nigeria…Using Telecoms Devices; see
http://www.tribune.com.ng/index.php/tele-info/8777-ncc-unveils-plans-to-
end-kidnapping-in-nigeriausing-telecoms-devices
demand for one form of identity or the other and verify same before

activating SIM cards for ecstatic users, thus robbing each country of the

much-needed national database of mobile telephone users. When analog

mode of telephony was in vogue, every country had a database of

subscribers, even if only to ensure convenience of sending monthly bills to

the moneyed few that were connected to the national grid.

This singular oversight, it is argued, is what has emboldened more

criminals to employ the use of prepaid phones to carry out their nefarious

activities with an air of impunity, spurring more and more technology-savvy

youths to further indulge in fraudulent chores by sending malicious and

unsolicited text messages to other subscribers. Though this corrective

regulation of registering SIM cards has been introduced with minimal public

outcry in countries like South Africa, Mauritius, and Tanzania, the measure

is greeted with suspicion and distrust in many countries such as Egypt,

Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Ghana11. In Nigeria, which joined the mobile

phone frenzy in 2001, efforts of the Nigerian Communications Commission,

NCC, to introduce this idea and help in the bid to clamp down on crime

through SIM card registration are in top gear. Still shivering under the vice
11
In an online debate hosted by the British Broadcasting Corporation to discuss the
possibility of the new registration scheme to impinge on privacy and rights, many
people voiced the fears, saying it would be abused.
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?
forumID=7447&start=30&edition=2&ttl=20101104054857
grip of kidnappers, Nigeria, through the NCC, unveiled additional plan

recently, which entails installing equipment on every mast with the goal of

achieving triangulation in order to identify and locate real geographical

location of phone users, whether the handsets involved are GPS-enabled or

not.

Even in Ghana, Africa’s emerging model of democracy, tongues are

wagging as to the legality of registering of compelling operators to register

all SIM cards12. Unlike other countries, Ghana even went a step further,

planning a phone tapping system called Intelligence Signaling Management

System, ISMS. Among other things, this would help Ghana monitor and

track all incoming international calls, see and also read text messages and

access other data on cell phones. Expectedly, the idea has drawn flaks from

rights advocacy groups who consider the efforts as an illegal peep into the

private affairs of citizenry.13

12
Lampooning the federal authorities for initiating registration of handset users’ data,
Ace Anan Ankomah, a legal practitioner in Ghana, petitioned government, insisting
that the move contravened article 18(2) of the country’s 1992 constitution, which
abhors interference with the privacy of citizens’ home, property, correspondence and
communication, except in accordance with the law. Read further in Ace Akomah
Battles National Security over Mobile Phone Registration.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200912170960.html
13
In a suit instituted against the government of Ghana by the Alliance for
Accountable Governance, AFAG, maintained that the planned installation of an
intelligence system to monitor phone calls amounted to a breach of fundamental
human rights of Ghanaians. It therefore prayed the court to declare the action ultra
vires. See AFAG Sues Government over Phone Tapping.
http://www.modernghana.com/news/277910/1/afag-sues-government-over-
phone-tapping.html