On Saturday morning between 11 am and 12 pm, as Nigerians woke up to the reality of a Twitter ban, and downloading Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to access Twitter, the Nigerian government, through the office of the Presidency, reached out to the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) to discuss plans to build an internet firewall, FIJ has learnt.

The government officials present at the meeting include Ibrahim Gambari, the Chief of Staff to the President, and Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information and Culture.

The internet firewall is a way of having a separate network for the Nigerian Internet that will give the government control over social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. This is similar to the internet filtering system China operates, called the Great Firewall.

According to CFR, “the Great Firewall, is the centre of the government’s online censorship and surveillance effort. Its methods include bandwidth throttling, keyword filtering, and blocking access to certain websites.”

The Reporters Without Borders states that the firewall makes large-scale use of Deep Packet Inspection technology, an advanced method of examining and managing network traffic. The Nigerian government seeks to establish the Nigerian Internet, which it will also control likewise.

A digital security expert told FIJ that China is the only country that deploys total Deep Packet Inspection over its cyberspace. The technology involves making use of lots of manpower.


FIJ’s source said the EndSARS protests in 2020 made the government more desperate to control the cyberspace. The conversation about a Nigerian firewall started during the EndSARS protests.

“The government needed a legal framework through which it could carry out its actions,” he said. “That legal framework would serve as a justification for their actions. Mostly, the rhetoric of the government uses, including Friday’s suspension of Twitter, was around Nigeria’s unity and national security.”

A 2020 report titled Running in Circles Uncovering the Clients of Cyberespionage Firm Circles by The Citizen Lab of the University of Toronto showed that Nigeria’s Defence Intelligence Agency had recruited the services of Circles in 2015 and 2017 to spy on its citizens and track down government critics.

Nigeria’s surveillance capabilities rank high on the continent. In 2018, the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) was allocated $12.8 million for Stranvisky Project 2. Other budget allocations intended to increase the surveillance capabilities of both the ONSA and the Department of State Security (DSS) included a ‘Social Media Mining Suite’, ‘Wolverme Next Generation SDRIMSI’, ‘Surveillance Drone’ and ‘Mobile Surveillance Facilities’.

Freedom House, a US-based advocacy group, revealed that the surveillance projects such as Stranvisky Project 2 still received allocation in the 2019 and 2020 budget proposals.

The Citizen Lab, meanwhile, reported that Circles, a surveillance firm, exploits weaknesses in the global mobile phone system to snoop on calls, texts, and the location of phones around the globe. Circles relies on inside sources and open sources intelligence and customers can purchase a system that they connect to local telecommunications companies. Circles merged with NSO Group in 2014, an Israeli surveillance company that sells surveillance equipment.

A 2016 investigation showed that in 2010, Rotimi Amaechi, the former Governor of Rivers State, was the first government official to make contact with Circles to deliver internet surveillance equipment. Though the deal fell through, it highlighted the direction Nigeria was going.

Internet shutdown has become a tool that African leaders are more inclined to exercise during protests and elections. In 2017 in Cameroon, for example, the Anglophone regions had internet shutdown for over three months, and it was only restored on the orders of their sit-tight President, Paul Biya.


Presidency Meets With China’s Cyber Regulator to Build Nigerian Internet Firewall



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