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The leakage of the personal details of some
security operatives is worrying. There is urgent need to investigate it
The recent publication
on the internet of the names and personal details of some 60 agents of
Nigeria's State Security Service (SSS) including its Director General,
Ekpenyong Ita, again raises serious questions about the competence of those
entrusted with the nation's security. According to the United States- based
Associated Press (AP) wire service reports, the leaked details included mobile
phone numbers, contacts and bank account numbers.
Expectedly the leakage
of such sensitive details of secret agents has raised apprehension among both
former and servicing officers of the agency. The reason for the apprehension is
quite understandable in view of the continuing activities of the Boko Haram
sect. Unfortunately, in a typical Nigerian way of not acknowledging an
institutional failing that could have led to this national embarrassment, the
SSS deputy Director of Media and Public Relations, Ms Marilyn Ogar, denied
there was such a leak. Thus, even though the data was already in the public
domain vide the internet, Ogar called the AP report "false". In her
words: "The report is false because the AP reporter that filed the story
failed to give me the link to the website that allegedly published the personal
data of our personnel."
The SSS spokesperson
further questioned why "it was only the AP reporter that saw the
website." Then, as an after-thought, Ogar complained that the AP reporter
"had published his story before calling me for reactions." However,
the issue at stake should not have been whether the AP had already posted the
report on the internet before contacting the agency or why it was only AP that
knew the website where the leaked data was posted. The fact of the matter is
that there was a leak. This is more so given the fact that many other reputable
media organisations also published the story.
What the SSS
authorities should understand is that the emergence of Julie Asange's Wikileaks
and indeed the internet has engendered a situation where leaking "state
secrets" and other data and information considered "highly
confidential" is now almost a routine. Even the United States Government
was in 2010 embarrassed by the leakage of its military and diplomatic cables by
Wikileaks. So every country is now mindful of how to protect information that could
compromise the security of their citizens and when such is breached, they make
efforts at damage limitation.
We believe it is
important that the SSS should carry out extensive investigation into how the
classified data of its personnel was leaked instead of pretending that nothing
happened just because the website that hosted it is no longer accessible.
Incidentally, some SSS officials, hiding under anonymity, would later offer a
lame excuse that the leakage could have emanated from the agency's Pension Fund
Administrators as the information posted on the internet conformed to the type
of information filled out on PFA forms. Yet it could have also been the result
of insider job as America discovered to its consternation, in the case of one
of its classified documents on the Gulf war published by Wikileaks. Therefore
it will be wise and proper that the SSS stops at nothing until it established
the source of the embarrassing revelation. Without doubt, the revelation of
agents' personal data did not only compromise the secret nature of the SSS
work, it absolutely endangers the lives of those concerned and even their
family members.
But then it is common
knowledge that some operatives of Nigeria's secret services have often betrayed
a lack of professionalism. Some are in the habit of openly boasting of the
nature of their job. Yet such flippancy definitely constitutes a major source
of security breach much to the embarrassment of the agency. It is time the
agency and its leadership put their act together.
Thisday Editorial
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