By Arinze Chijioke
When government critic Chika Nwoba petitioned the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in February 2024, he didn’t expect the complaint would trigger what he describes as a prolonged campaign of surveillance and arrest against him.
Nwoba’s petition had alleged diversion of funds meant to empower hawkers in Ebonyi State. Before that, the state Governor Francis Nwifuru approved N3 billion for the empowerment programme and released a first tranche of N1 billion to a seven-member committee to manage its disbursement.
Nwoba alleged that Oguzor Offia-Nwali, the Commissioner for Commerce and Industry, and three members of the seven-member committee diverted the money instead of disbursing it to beneficiaries. He said he contacted the governor, who acknowledged the allegation and promised to act, but Nwoba remained sceptical and petitioned the EFCC.
“When they learned that I wrote a petition against them, they petitioned the Ebonyi State Police Command in Abakaliki. They wanted to sweep the matter under the carpet,” Nwoba alleged.
Nwoba has previously criticised successive Ebonyi administrations, including former governor David Umahi, under whose administration he alleged that security operatives came to his home around 5 am looking for documents they believed he possessed. He said they searched the house, tried to handcuff him and assaulted him before leaving.
The soft-target approach
Nwoba said operatives of the police command’s Crack Team tracked his phone using metadata and obtained numbers from his communications, including those of his sister and one of his workers.
Rather than targeting Nwoba directly, the operation allegedly used people connected to him as entry points, turning his digital footprint into a tool for reaching him. His sister, Ebube Nwoba, who ran a bakery and was saved in his phone as “Ebube Cake,” was contacted by operatives who claimed they were organising a wedding and wanted her to come to Awka in Anambra State to discuss a cake design.
“When she got to the location, they arrested her and asked her to call me. She did not suspect any foul play. They wanted to use her as a ‘soft target’ to lure me into custody.”
Nwoba said he was in Onitsha when his sister called. He alleged that officers forced her to tell him she had been arrested after she fought with a female police officer. He assured his sister he would come the following day to secure her release.
“When I got there, they arrested me. About 10 of them had come from Ebonyi to arrest me. They released my sister and took me to the Ebonyi State Police Command in Abakaliki, where I was asked to write a statement. I was detained.”
Nwoba said a police officer later told him that his arrest was connected to the petition against Offia-Nwali and the other committee members.
“When I arrived at the command, the commissioner also came and was threatening me for destroying his image and that of others,” Nwoba recalled.
“He said this would be the last petition I would write and that he was going to deal with me. I told him I would come out as I did not steal or do anything wrong.”
But Offia-Nwali, the Commissioner for Commerce and Industry, denied the allegations, describing Nwoba’s claims as mischievous. He insisted that Nwoba had no evidence to support his allegations, adding that the empowerment programme was managed by a seven-member committee led by the serving Commissioner for Trade and Investment, with a secretary.
“I was neither the committee chairman nor the secretary; neither was the N1 billion mapped out for the programme paid into my ministry’s account or an account that I am signatory to,” he said.
When contacted, the Police Public Relations Officer in Ebonyi, SP Joshua Ukandu, said the police will do everything necessary, including using surveillance technology, to track individuals if they have petitions against them.
“After our investigation, we go ahead to take action, and that includes taking the individual to court, but if we see that there is nothing in it, then we let them go,” he said.
How security operatives tracked Nwoba
Security analyst and Managing Director of Beacon Security and Intelligence Limited, Kabiru Adamu, said that the tracking Nwoba described is technically possible through Call Data Records (CDRs), cell-site analysis and phone identifiers such as IMEI and IMSI numbers. He said CDRs can show the numbers regularly communicating with a target, potentially allowing investigators to identify associates or other people connected to the person being monitored.
The tactic has been documented in Nigeria before. A 2020 investigation by the Committee to Protect Journalists found that police in at least three cases used call records obtained from telecommunications providers to identify people connected to journalists they wanted to arrest and then used those contacts to facilitate the arrests. In one case, police told Samuel Ogundipe, a journalist with Premium Times at the time, that they had examined his call records to determine who was close enough to him to be used as bait.
Adamu said security agencies also use cell-site analysis, which combines call-detail records with cell-tower data from telecommunications providers to map communication patterns and estimate a person’s location. The data can include call times, durations and phone identifiers such as IMEI and IMSI numbers.
“Investigators can also forensically examine seized phones to recover call records, messages, deleted files and location history,” Adamu said, adding that other possible methods include analysis of social media and online activity, IP-address tracing, and requests for location data from technology companies.
Nwoba was arraigned at a magistrate court and remanded at Abakaliki Correctional Centre. On February 17, 2024, the Coalition of South-East Youth Leaders petitioned the Inspector-General of Police, the EFCC and Amnesty International, calling for an investigation into the alleged diversion of the empowerment fund and Nwoba’s release. Nwoba was granted bail by the Federal High Court in May 2024.
Both the information commissioner, Ikeuwa Omebeh, and the Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Monday Uzor, did not respond to questions on whether there was an investigation into the allegations of diversion. They ignored several calls, texts and WhatsApp messages. Nwoba, however, insists there was no investigation into the issue.
Tracking did not end with his arrest
Nwoba alleged that security operatives in Ebonyi continued to track him and monitor people around him after his bail in 2024. He said an unverified source in the state called him on the phone and informed him that security operatives were analysing his photographs and videos as part of efforts to locate and arrest him.
He alleged that the surveillance on him had continued because he continued to criticise the government of the state. “They just wanted to detain someone closest to me to force me into total submission,” he added.
On July 30, 2026, Nwoba said Department of State Services (DSS) officers tracked his wife’s phone and obtained about 10 contacts from it. According to him, the contacts subsequently reported receiving calls from the same number asking them to come to Awka to collect a waybill.
One of those contacted was Nwoba’s driver, who was asked to collect a parcel at Aroma Junction, Awka. The driver said he was no longer a commercial driver but referred another person. Nwoba said the operatives arrested the person, then used him to lure and arrest his driver.
“They forced him to take them to my house, thinking they would find me. When they got there, they beat my wife up and demanded to know where I was,” Nwoba said, adding that “They searched the flat and roof before taking my wife to the DSS state command in Awka, where she was detained.”
He later sent a lawyer to secure her release while his driver was moved to Abakaliki and detained for 17 days before being released.
Within the same period, Nwoba alleged that security officers hacked his phone and listened to his conversations. He said he noticed an unusual echo during calls and that his battery began draining rapidly.
He subsequently paid a US-based company for a tool to protect his phone, adding that he has since stopped using a SIM card. Instead, he connects his phone to a router and uses his existing WhatsApp account for calls and messages.
“Without direct phone calls, it becomes difficult to use the soft target option to track me because they will not find any direct contact. My location service is always off, and I cannot attend events or move about anyhow,” he said.
A pattern of surveillance and arrest
Nwoba’s experience is not isolated. In May 2017, after the second anniversary celebration of Dave Umahi, then governor of Ebonyi State, Charles Otu, the publisher of The People’s Conscience newspaper, a local biweekly, wrote a 12-paragraph Facebook post where he observed that the former governor failed to keep his campaign promises two years after his inauguration. He titled it “This Government is absolutely unaccountable.”
“I was invited to cover the event and was seated at the Abakaliki Township Stadium and listened while he (Umahi) reeled out his achievements in two years, claiming to have fulfilled all his promises.”
After the event, Otu went back to fact-check Umahi. Comparing the governor’s speech with what was on the ground, Otu challenged Umahi’s pledge not to award contracts to family members and cronies, alleging that the governor had broken that promise with the alleged involvement of his brother in the renovation of the stadium where Umahi pledged.
The post went viral and unsettled Umahi’s government. What followed was a series of incidents that Otu interpreted as attempts to monitor and intimidate him. He told the ICIR that he began receiving calls and messages from hidden numbers. The callers allegedly warned him to stop opposing the government and that he was being watched. On some occasions, he said, the callers remained silent.
At 5:30 pm on Friday, June 2, 2017, three days after the publication, a lady using a number unknown to him called and said she wanted to publish a change of name in the Guardian newspaper, where he also contributed at the time.
“I asked her to meet me at the popular Vanco junction where we distribute newspapers to vendors in Abakaliki, the capital,” he recalled. “When she arrived, we went into an office so that I could get her details. We were also preparing to publish an edition of the Conscience Newspaper.”
The woman eventually left the office and allegedly signalled a group of armed men waiting nearby in a bus branded Akubaroha Youth Assembly. The group was in Ebonyi to promote Umahi’s achievements and campaign for his re-election. Otu alleged that two of the men rushed towards him and demanded his phone, and when he questioned why they wanted the phone, they began beating him.
He told the ICIR that he was dragged into the bus, ordered to lie face down and taken to the Old Government House in Abakaliki, where the men later read his Facebook post while allegedly torturing him.
The publisher said the leader of Akubaroha Youth Assembly, whom he identified as Mark Onu, told him he was a threat to Umahi and his government and that they would deal with him. He said his captors demanded that he sign a document promising to leave the state, stop criticising the government and only return after the governor left office, which he refused.
Otu said he eventually agreed to sign the document and was subsequently taken to Kpirikpiri Police Station, where he said he was instructed to write a statement claiming that he had been rescued from a mob attack.
According to him, members of the group became angry and demanded that police hand him back when he wrote that he had been abducted. By then, news of his arrest had spread on social media, and some of his friends had arrived at the station demanding his release. Otu said he later collapsed, vomiting blood and was taken to the Federal Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki, where he received treatment.
He told the ICIR that after his release, he discovered messages from the governor’s Chief Press Secretary, Emma Anya, on his phone warning him to be careful as he was being tracked. The ICIR tried to contact Anya to verify this claim via calls and text messages, but he was not reachable. The attack on Otu triggered condemnation from journalists and human-rights organisations, including the Nigerian Union of Journalists and Human Rights Defenders of Nigeria.
Shooters hit journalist
The attack on Otu came a day after another journalist he shared an office building with at 2 Awolowo Street, Abakaliki, was shot. Samuel Nweze, publisher of The People’s Leader, was shot in the back by unidentified assailants. Nweze told the News Agency of Nigeria that he narrowly escaped death.
“I was lucky that the assailants who came on a motorcycle missed the target,” Nweze said. “I heard a bang, and I felt sharp pains and blood gushing out from my back.”
But Otu claimed that Nweze was not the intended target. He said that the attackers had tracked him to the office and mistook Nweze for him. He said he later received a text message from an unknown sender reading, “lucky boi.” Because the incident happened in 2017, Otu told this reporter that he was no longer in possession of the text message.
Governor Umahi and his Technical Assistant on Media, Lawrence Egede, called for the arrest and prosecution of those responsible for the attack at the time. Titus Lamorde, who was Commissioner of Police in Ebonyi State at the time, told the Committee to Protect Journalists that police had opened an investigation into Otu’s beating.
But Otu said the threats continued even after he spoke publicly about his ordeal.
For his safety, he was moved to a private hospital, where he spent about two weeks recovering. He then travelled to Abuja and Enugu State, where he granted interviews on his ordeal before returning to Ebonyi State.
Ahead of the 2023 election that brought in the current governor, Francis Nwifuru, Otu noticed that his network always disappeared even at locations where others had network connection. At first, he thought it was a network glitch; he did not suspect that his phone could be tapped and his calls and movements monitored through telecommunications surveillance technology.
“If they suspected I was having too many conversations with any contact, they would limit my conversation by ceasing the network whenever I dialled the number,’ he said. “Each time I put my phone on tracker, it gives me a notification that my calls are being monitored.”
Other surveillance trails
In Owerri, Ifeanyichukwu Thomas’s family also described what they believed was tracking before his arrest in the early hours of November 7, 2021. Ozioma, his wife, told The ICIR that she was in the children’s room when Thomas walked in with two armed men holding him. Three others stood outside the compound.
Ozioma suspected that Thomas had been tracked because the officers went directly to his room, seized his phone and took him away. She recalled that in the days leading to the arrest, his phone sometimes became unusually hot, even when not in use. A police officer who lived in the same compound also told her that Thomas had been tracked, which explained how the officers located him that night.
Ozioma said she has not seen or heard from her husband since his arrest. She only learnt that the DSS was holding him in Abuja after seeing a 2022 document listing people accused of sponsoring IPOB. She said Thomas was never brought to court or tried.
The ICIR gathered that Thomas was taken to Wawa in Niger State in March 2022 and has not been returned to Abuja. Before his arrest, Ozioma said Thomas was a fish farmer while she sold roasted groundnuts in Owerri.
Several kilometres away in Lagos, Ngozi Dave says information obtained through surveillance helped security operatives locate and track her. Her ordeal began with calls from an unknown number. Each time she answered, the caller remained silent. At first, she thought little of it. But the calls became frequent, and she stopped answering, convinced that something was wrong.
Her fears were confirmed when four men showed up at her home in Ejigbo, Lagos, one morning in June 2021. Dave had just opened the gate to her compound to step outside when one of the men approached and grabbed her by the hand. When she asked who he was, another man kicked her, sending her to the ground. The men handcuffed her and took her away.
“They jacked me up and handcuffed me,” she recalled. “Residents started to shout and ask what had happened. They took me away, and I thought I had been kidnapped because there was nothing to show that they were security operatives.”
The men were not in uniform. One had earrings, and another had coloured hair, she recalled. They arrived in an unmarked Tundra Jeep and did not identify themselves as police officers or show any warrant of arrest. It was only after she was taken to the IRT facility in Ikeja GRA that Dave realised they were security operatives. She spent five days there, where officers accused her of sponsoring IPOB and recorded videos of her.
The trail that led to Dave
Dave believes she was targeted due to her involvement in raising and transferring money to victims of the 2020 #EndSARS protests in Anambra State. At the height of the protests, she said, hospitals were overwhelmed with injured victims struggling to get medical attention. After seeing videos of the situation, she and others began raising money to support their treatment.
“We raised N150,000. The money was paid into my account, and I got across to a woman who had volunteered to go to a hospital in Anambra where we wanted to pay for some patients,” she recalled.
Dave said the woman who received the money was later arrested and questioned about who had sent it. During the questioning, the woman allegedly provided Dave’s account and contact details to security operatives.
Dave said the financial transaction therefore became part of the trail that led security operatives to her.
Security analyst Kabiru Adamu told The ICIR that financial records can be used to trace the movement of money and identify links between people. He said investigators can also combine such information with telecommunications data, including call records and cell-site information, to identify contacts and estimate a person’s location.
While Dave’s account does not establish exactly which technology was used to locate her, the sequence she described- a financial transaction, the interrogation of its recipient, the disclosure of her details, repeated calls and the subsequent appearance of security operatives at her home- provides a traceable chain for investigating how information about her was obtained and how she was located.
From Lagos, Dave was taken to Abuja and detained at the “Abattoir” detention facility operated by the Nigeria Police Force’s IRT and previously the subject of human-rights allegations. She said she spent three months there and alleged that she was tortured. She was later transferred to Ikoyi Correctional Centre, where she spent several more days.
On the fifth day, her blood pressure rose, and a doctor ordered that she be given a room to rest. She was eventually released after her brother threatened to hold the police responsible if anything happened to her.
Before her arrest, Dave worked as an import’s logistics manager. By the time she returned, she had lost her job. A hospital examination later showed that her fractured wrists had not healed properly and that she needed surgery, but she could not afford to undergo it. She eventually moved away from the area where she was arrested and began rebuilding her life in an undisclosed location.
Nigeria’s growing surveillance and interception capacity
Around the time Dave and Thomas were arrested, Nigeria’s security agencies were investing heavily in surveillance, intelligence-gathering and communications- interception systems capable of tracking people through their phones and other digital data. Paradigm Initiative’s Londa 2025 Digital Rights and Inclusion report, alongside an analysis of the 2021 budget, shows that the Nigeria Police Force, the Department of State Services (DSS), the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) and other security agencies received funding for these capabilities.
The DSS has used surveillance and digital forensic tools to track and arrest suspects, including telecommunications data such as Call Data Records (CDRs) and cell-tower information, as well as forensic tools to extract information from seized devices.
For instance, while testifying before the Federal High Court in Abuja, a DSS operative described how digital forensic tools were used to track suspects linked to the June 5, 2022, attack on St. Francis Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo State. He said investigators relied on call geospatial network filtering, cell-tower triangulation and International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) analysis to trace the movement of the first defendant, Idris Abdulmalik Omeiza. The agency filtered thousands of phone numbers that connected to cell towers in Owaluwa, Elegbeka and Ifon shortly before and after the attack.
The scale of the surveillance infrastructure was reflected in government spending. In 2021, the Police budgeted N825 million for the Cobweb surveillance system and N639 million to maintain its intelligence-gathering platform. The Nigeria Police Trust Fund also allocated N46 million each for lawful interception, geolocation and call-record analysis.
The DSS budget included N140.8 million to expand lawful interception centres, N416.8 million for vehicle direction finders and N139.4 million for surveillance equipment, alongside funding for an integrated crisis management surveillance system, cybersecurity and intelligence-analysis technologies.
The ONSA budgeted N5.49 billion for the Counter Terrorism Centre’s All Eye Project and N12.1 billion for defence equipment and security infrastructure. Other 2021 procurements included N2.94 billion for a Thuraya Interception Solution, N1.93 billion for a WhatsApp Intercept Solution and N7.46 billion for an Independent Lawful Interception Platform for Voice and Advanced Data Monitoring. The DIA received a further N7.46 billion in the supplementary budget for the same interception platform.
UN Comtrade data analysed by the ICIR shows that Nigeria imported about $7.02 billion worth of equipment across selected communications and electronic-equipment classifications between 2021 and 2025. China accounted for $5.56 billion, roughly 79% of the total. The imports included communication apparatus, switching and routing equipment, and electrical machines with individual functions. Some products in these broad categories can be used for network monitoring, electronic surveillance, electronic countermeasures (ECM) and signal jamming.
The figures do not distinguish surveillance equipment from ordinary communications infrastructure, establish that the imports were surveillance equipment, or identify Nigerian security agencies as the purchasers. Nevertheless, they indicate the scale of communications and electronic technology entering Nigeria during a period when the government was expanding its investment in surveillance and intelligence-gathering capabilities.
The ICIR sent Freedom of Information requests to the DSS and the Nigeria Police Force on June 25 and 29, 2026, respectively, seeking information about the legal basis for surveillance, tracking and detention of people suspected to be IPOB members like Thomas and Dave. The DSS was specifically asked to provide the legal frameworks governing the interception, monitoring, tracking and surveillance of telephone calls, and the legal basis for the continued detention of Thomas since his arrest in November 2021.
The police were asked the number of people arrested in connection with alleged IPOB and/or ESN activities, how many were charged in court, and the number of complaints against officers alleging unlawful arrest, detention, torture, extortion and enforced disappearance. The National Human Rights Commission was also asked about its role in addressing such violations. All these requests were acknowledged, but no response had been received at the time of publication.
Unlawful detention
Human rights lawyer Maxwell Opara said the DSS often relies on Section 27 of the Terrorism Prevention Act to apply to the Federal High Court for an ex parte order to detain suspects. He said the provision permits an initial period of detention for investigation, subject to further applications to the court and justification for why the investigation remains incomplete.
Opara said he has challenged the provision, arguing that prolonged administrative detention violates the right to personal liberty and the constitutional requirement for suspects to be brought before a court within the prescribed period. The lawyer said keeping suspects like Thomas for months without trial on the grounds of an ongoing investigation amounts to unlawful detention.
“Under Nigerian law, investigations must precede an arrest, not the other way around. If an agency does not have enough evidence to arraign a suspect within 24 to 48 hours, they are legally required to release them on administrative bail while completing their inquiry,” he said.
Contrary to the findings of this report, which documented instances of an apparent failure to investigate, unlawful arrest and torture, CSP Omaka Udodinma, an officer with the Nigeria Police Force’s National Cybercrime Centre and head of its Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) Unit, said the police operate within the confines of the law when deploying digital surveillance and conduct proper investigations before taking action.
Speaking at an ICIR conversation on how spyware and digital surveillance threaten human rights, Udodinma said an investigation does not amount to a conclusion or indictment, adding that suspects are treated as such and not convicts.
He said the police are empowered under the Cybercrimes Act to obtain information from open sources and, where necessary, collect digital devices belonging to suspects or individuals believed to have violated the law.
“An individual has the right to release their phone or not release it. No digital device is obtained under duress,” he said. “But in the course of an investigation, if the device is required, the law empowers us to take away the device for forensic investigation, but that requires legal procedures.”
Udodinma said the police follow a chain of command when collecting devices for forensic examination and do not indiscriminately scan them for all available information. “They are not collected and completely scanned for every piece of information, but only what is relevant to the investigation. The essence is for evidential purposes and not to indict anybody,” he said.
Legal safeguards for electronic surveillance
The LONDA report found that while Nigeria continues to expand its surveillance capacity, public transparency, judicial oversight and accountability have not kept pace, raising concerns about the normalisation of intrusive monitoring.
Digital privacy and data protection lawyer, Dr Olumide Babalola, said phone tracking, communications interception and other forms of electronic surveillance must have a lawful basis and be necessary and proportionate to a legitimate objective.
“Surveillance activities must generally be authorised by law, pursue a legitimate objective such as the prevention or investigation of crime, and be necessary and proportionate,” he said.
He said surveillance should generally be authorised by a court order or warrant issued by an independent judge or magistrate. Such warrants, he explained, should specify the person, device or location to be monitored and the categories of data sought, rather than permit broad or exploratory searches. They must also comply with the constitutional right to privacy under Section 37 and applicable data-protection laws, said Babalola.
The data protection lawyer noted that the right to privacy is not absolute and stressed that laws such as the Cybercrimes Act and the Nigeria Data Protection Act allow limited circumstances for surveillance or processing of personal data without consent. But he said any interference with privacy must remain lawful, necessary and proportionate and comply with applicable judicial and statutory safeguards.
As a way out, Babalola said Nigeria should strengthen the legal framework governing surveillance through clearer statutory safeguards, independent judicial authorisation for intrusive monitoring, stronger oversight by independent institutions and greater transparency in the use of surveillance powers.
“Regular public reporting, effective audit mechanisms, robust data protection compliance, clear retention and deletion rules, and accessible remedies for individuals whose rights have been violated would enhance accountability,” he said. “These reforms must align with the Constitution [and] the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023.”
He warned that security must not be used as a basis for unjust surveillance. “You cannot keep someone under surveillance or in detention for three years in the name of security. Surveillance should be a tool that respects human rights.”
Assistant Manager, Regulations Unit, National Data Protection Commission, Ibukunoluwa Owa, said people who believe they have been subjected to unlawful surveillance can seek redress through an action to enforce their constitutional right to privacy under the Nigeria Data Protection Act, including claims for damages.
Providing additional context, security expert Adamu reiterated that surveillance applications should be based on probable cause, a reasonable suspicion linked to a specific serious crime, and not simply alleged membership of an outlawed group.
He said operating without judicial authorisation, proper documentation or independent oversight creates opportunities for abuse, unlawful detention, evidence contamination and institutional misconduct. He said the difficulty security agencies face in meeting digital-forensics integrity requirements can undermine the reliability of evidence and accountability.
“Pervasive and unregulated surveillance stifles lawful association and free expression,” he said. “Evidence obtained without lawful authorisation or in violation of constitutional privacy protections should be inadmissible in court, while defendants should have access to surveillance records to challenge their legality and reliability.”