I don't know
what comes to mind for you reading this title but I remember hearing this same
words a couple of times prior from diverse sources over the years. Usually,
whenever anyone receives such statements, it is an indication that one is
hemmed in on every side without any possibility of escape.
The person(s)
who dares to utter these words is supremely confident. S/he is certain that
power and influence in this situation resides with them and they can either
give life or take it at their pleasure. These persons are not given to caution
in their speech as they infused with the spirit of the invincible with a
knowledge of their endless powers.
From time to
time, the executive arm of government in Nigeria acts like such a personality
and the case of $40m USD contract to protect Nigeria's Internet is no
exception. Because the executive holds the purse strings hence control the
terms of engagement, anyone actively serving in this arm of government acts
like one who answers to nobody else apart from their boss. This is prevalent with
occupants of the villa both in times past and present.
The allegiance
of civil servants especially the ones who rely on the appointing powers of the
President to advance to the very top levels of their chosen profession, is
primarily to the executive with occasional deference to the legislative &
judicial arms of government when it cannot be avoided.
The current
silence or lack of comment by the relevant government bodies on our dear
'Internet Protection' project that is expected to cost $40m USD is rather not
surprising. Whenever discussions on ICT emerge, governments all over, talk of
the need to properly protect their citizens as we see the good, the bad &
the ugly of using technology.
However, anyone
who uses anything in this world will acknowledge our devices are just tools
that by using, the human factor decides in what manner, shape & model its
impact will be e.g. the same gas using for cooking could if not correctly used
lead to a fire outbreak.
The existing
nature of governance sees an executive arm that is all powerful followed by the
legislative arm. Infact, we see power tussles from active players in these two
levels of government but i think the one that poses the greatest danger is the
judiciary that has little influence relative to the other two arms.
No society that
makes good progress exists without checks & balance. This is for the
benefit of everyone as we like to say 'good intent is not enough' thus anyone
left to his/her own devices will eventually slide into anarchy & sheer
dictatorship even though that was not the intent at the onset.
The issue of
data privacy & protection cannot be trivialized and technology is at the
fulcrum as we all use the internet from a myriad of devices with service
provision from the private sector. However, to aggregate sensitive &
personal information and make it accessible to practically anyone who says its
in our national security that they require such and not subject the process of
request or collation to proper justification is not just disastrous but greatly
leaves us open to descend into open censorship.
I remember the
movie 'Independence Day' starring Will Smith. HIs character suffered some
severe case of identity theft with no area of his life left unturned as the
Director of a National Security Agency was convinced he was an enemy of the
state whose goal was to destroy the state having gotten access to certain high
security clearance level events illegally (in his view). At the end of the
movie, one line stands out 'Who is going to monitor the monitors?'. This is
because a senior member of government was speaking at a press conference and
acknowledging mistakes had been made while apologising to person(s) affected.
We cannot
overemphasise the need to ensure Nigerians can proactively engage in cyber
space without fear of attacks or other incidents. However, to try to use this
legitimate need as the basis for creating a wall-like structure that actively
monitors what citizens are doing online and archive such records to be accessed
by persons charged with maintaining our security without oversight from all
other arms of government and clear transparency in how this works does far more
harm than good.
The posture must
be that we recognise we are all custodians of common trust thus, treat
ourselves with dignity, respect and equity without pre-supposing any person or
group is more vested in the progress of Nigeria than others.
- Babatope Soremi. You can reach him via babatope {at} gmail.com
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