MS Risk Blog

Nigerian President Announces First Official Trip

On Monday, a spokesman for President Muhammadu Buhari announced that the newly elected president will this week make his first foreign trip since taking office.

Newly elected President Buhari is due to travel to neighboring Niger on Wednesday and to Chad on Thursday. Niger shares a border with Borno and Yobe states while Chad borders Borno state in Nigeria’s extreme northeast. According to Shehu Garba, the two-day trip will focus on “maters of security,” with the cooperation of Nigeria’s neighbors seen as being critical to ending the militant uprising, which since 2009 has claimed more than 15,000 lives.

President Buhari was sworn in last Friday and during his inaugural speech, he vowed to crush the insurgent group, which he described as “mindless” and “godless.” Despite this vow, Boko Haram carried out an attack some twelve hours after the new president took the oath of office, targeting homes in the key northeastern city of Maiduguri. Overnight on Saturday, the militants stormed the city, launching rocket-propelled grenades. Later, a suicide attack at a mosque in the city, which is the Borno state capital, killed at least twenty-six people and injured dozens others. On Sunday, the militants raided two towns in Borno’s neighboring state of Yobe, where they torched public buildings and looted food and fuel stores.

While former president Goodluck Jonathan’s administration had previously complained that Nigeria’s neighbors were not doing enough in order to contain Boko Haram, as in some instances, the militants were able to flee military pursuit by crossing porous borders, a four-nation offensive launched in February, and which includes troops from Cameroon, has won significant victories, however there are growing fears that Boko Haram may be regrouping, particularly in the remote border areas which are difficult to patrol. In turn, both Chad and Niger have complained of a lack of cooperation from Nigeria, which has strained relations with all its neighbors. Chadian troops have also had to retake some towns from Boko Haram several times as Nigerian troops haven’t arrived in order to secure them.

Regional Summit Opens as Crisis in Burundi Continues

After a regional summit on the on going political crisis in Burundi was held in neighbouring Tanzania on Sunday, East African leaders declared that the upcoming elections in Burundi should be delayed by at least a month and a half and that the on going violence must end. The leaders, however, stopped short of calling for Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza to abandon his controversial bid for a third consecutive term in office, which has effectively sparked weeks of civil unrest, a coup attempt and a major refugee crisis that is now affecting the region.

In a statement read out the East African Community’s (EAC) secretary general Richard Sezibera, which was released shortly after a meeting of regional leaders was held in neighbouring Tanzania, the East African leaders stated “the summit, concerned at the impasse in Burundi, strongly calls for a long postponement of the elections not less than a month and a half.” The statement further called “on all parties to stop violence,” for the “disarmament of all armed youth groups,” which is a clear reference to the ruling party’s supporters who have been accused of attacking the party’s opponents, and for “the creation of conditions for the return of refugees” who have fled the crisis. The EAC summit was attended by leaders from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who is a key regional player and Burundi’s neighbour, sent a minister to represent him. South African President Jacob Zuma was also present at the talks.  The summit had been seen as a critical opportunity to resolve the crisis, with talks between the president’s camp and the main opposition currently at a deadlock.

President Nkurunziza was not present during Sunday’s summit, with his spokesman indicating that the president would instead be pushing ahead with his re-election campaign. However it is widely believed that the president’s absence is linked to the 13 May failed coup attempt, which occurred when President Nkurunziza attended the first crisis meeting in Tanzania’s economic capital. In an attempt to benefit from the president being out of the country, a top general launched an unsuccessful bid to oust him.

The political crisis in Burundi erupted after the ruling party designated President Nkurunziza, who has been in power for ten years, as its candidate for the upcoming elections. The opposition and rights groups however have indicated that this move effectively violates the constitution as well as a 2006 peace agreement, which ended the country’s 13-year civil war. That war killed hundreds of thousands of civilians and there are now growing fears that the current political crisis may push the country back into conflict. Despite the civil unrest leaving at least 30 people dead, the Burundian government has maintained that parliamentary elections will take place on 5 June, with presidential elections scheduled for 26 June.

Nigerian President Inaugurated

On Friday, the winner of Nigeria’s presidential election in March, Muhammadu Buhari, was sworn in as leader of Africa’s most populous country.

President Buhari is the first opposition figure to win a presidential election in Nigeria since independence in 1960. He defeated Goodluck Jonathan, who had been in office since 2010, by 15.4 million votes to 12.9 million. At the inauguration ceremony at Abuja’s Eagle Square, Mr Jonathan handed over the constitution and national flags before Mr Buhari took his oath of office. Mr Jonathan also urged his successor to unite the country in the face of the continued threat from Boko Haram. Speaking to cheering crowds, President Buhari stated, “I will discharge my duties to the best of my ability, faithfully and in accordance with the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the law.” President Buhari comes to power as the country is facing significant economic as well as security challenges, with the on-going Boko Haram insurgency, which has devastated towns and villages in northeastern Nigeria. President Buhari has also promised to stamp out corruption.

Security was increased in and around the capital Abuja on Thursday, as final preparations were underway for the inauguration of Muhammadu Buhari as president. Amongst those confirmed to attend are South African President Jacob Zuma, US Secretary of State John Kerry and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius. On the ground sources have reported that soldiers were out in force on the streets of the capital, including at the main entry points into the city. There was also a visible police presence at key locations across Abuja, including at hotels and government buildings. Roads have been closed around the Eagle Square inauguration venue, where dozens of international flags have been hoisted alongside the Nigerian flag. Nigeria’s federal police chief Solomon Arase has indicated that the measures have been imposed in order “to ward off possible plans by insurgents to carry out widespread violence and coordinated attacks.” He has urged members of the public to remain vigilant and to cooperate with the security services “to stamp out crimes, including (the) war against terror…to ensure (a) hitch-free inauguration.” Such threats include a possible attack by Boko Haram militants, who in the past have hit Abuja, including twice in the space of a month last April and May, when nearly 100 people were killed. On those occasions, the bombings targeted a bus station located on the outskirts of the city. In June last year, 21 people were killed when a bomb targeted a shopping mall located near the city center. In 2010, twin car bombings claimed by militants from the oil-producing southern Delta region killed ten people near ceremonies in the capital marking fifty years of independence.

Six People Placed in Isolation in Guinea after Transporting Ebola Victim in Taxi

Six people have been put in isolation in prison after being accused of travelling with a corpse of a relative who had died of Ebola.  If after twenty-one days they do not show any signs of having contracted the deadly virus, they will be tried for violating the health emergency.

According to Guinean authorities, the body was seated upright in a taxi, dressed in a T-shirt and jeans with sunglasses and sandwiched between three others.  The head of Guinea’s Ebola response, Dr Sakoba Keita, has indicated that those now in quarantine in prison had been travelling in a taxi with the body of the police recruit from the town of Forecariah towards the capital, Conakry.  They were stopped at an Ebola checkpoint where security officials became suspicious when the seemingly well-dressed passenger remained motionless.

Guinea is currently battling to control a recent flare up in Ebola cases.  Authorities have reported that relatives of Ebola victims are increasingly transporting their bodies on public transportation, seating the corpses upright between other passengers in a bid to avoid health controls.  According to Dr Keita, actions, such as transporting corpses in taxis, account for the continued spread of the Ebola epidemic.  Figures released by the World Health Organization (WHO) last week reported the highest number of cases in Guinea in more than a month, with at least twenty-seven new cases reported in one week.  They comes as officials were hoping that the outbreak in Guinea was finally coming under control, with neighbouring Liberia recently being declared Ebola-free and Sierra Leone registering only eight cases during the same period.  While it is against the law to transport bodies of Ebola victims from one community to another, according to Rabiatou Serah, a member of an anti-Ebola committee, relatives who are concealing bodies are managing to get past inspection agents.  Nearly 2,500 people have died in the West African country since the Ebola outbreak began more than a year ago.

Due to “a substantial increase” in the weekly total of new Ebola cases in Guinea, the WHO has deployed a response team to the border with Guinea-Bissau because the country’s proximity to a recent cluster of cases reported in the neighbouring Guinean prefecture.  In its latest update, the WHO reported that in the week ending on 17 May, 35 new cases were reported in Guinea and Sierra Leone, effectively the highest weekly total of confirmed cases of Ebola in over a month.  Guinea reported 27 of those cases, compared with seven that were recorded the week before.  A statement released by the WHO disclosed that “this is a substantial increase compared with nine cases reported the previous week.”  It further reported, “the geographical area of transmission has also expanded compared with recent weeks, with a total of six districts reporting cases (three in Guinea, three in Sierra Leone) compared with three the previous week (three in Guinea, one in Sierra Leone),” adding, “because of the proximity to Guinea-Bissau of the recent cluster of cases in the Guinean prefecture of Boke, a response team from Guinea-Bissau has been deployed to the border to assess points of entry… An epidemiological investigation team has also mobilized to ensure any contacts who cross the border are traced.”  The statement further noted, “the cases in Boke were tightly clustered in the coastal sub-prefecture of Kamsar, and initial investigations suggest they may have originated from a chain of transmission in Conakry.”  WHO officials have indicated that while the exact origin of the cluster in Boke remains unknown, an investigation has linked most of the confirmed cases to four probable cases who attended a funeral of another probable case in mid-April, which may have been the source of the outbreak.  Guinea-Bissau has not reported any cases of Ebola.

The German Spy Scandal

Two years ago, after the NSA’s former contractor Edward Snowden’s revelations regarding the extent of U.S. electronic espionage in Europe, which allegedly included monitoring Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cellphone, Germany was presented as a victim of aggressive intelligence gathering. However, it seems a new scandal arose recently that presents Germany as a willing accomplice in NSA’s intelligence gathering in Europe. According to these allegations, Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the BND, carried out extensive surveillance at the request of NSA. Reports suggest that various European companies, institutions and individuals were targeted something that violates the German policy and law, since the type of information the BND is allowed to collect is strictly regulated by German law. According to the reports, BND provided signals intelligence for the NSA in more than 40,000 instances. Additionally, there are reports that claim that NSA have passed some 800,000 IP addresses, phone numbers and email addresses to the BND to monitor. These new allegations raised a lot of questions against the German government and its alleged contribution in authorizing BND to collect and share that kind of intelligence with NSA. This new scandal came as a godsend gift at the hands of the opposition that found a new tool to attack the Chancellor since she enjoys great popularity amongst Germans voters.

After the scandal was made public, BND halted any Internet-related intelligence sharing with the NSA. At the same time, the German parliament demanded a full list of all the companies, institutions and individuals that were deemed suitable to be spied on. The parliamentary committee proceeded in questioning Thomas de Maizière, the Interior Minister, behind closed doors. Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that she too would be willing to testify if the committee deemed necessary. However, the scandal is already harming Angela Merkel’s public profile since she came into power under the promise of competence and credibility. The German people feel deceived with the hypocrisy of the German government when back in 2013 when Germany was presented as the victim of aggressive intelligence Angela Merkel had said that ‘’spying among friends is not acceptable’’, and under these new allegations Germany nowadays does what it had denounced back in 2013. Austria announced that it filled a legal complaint against Germany over suspicions that its authorities and firms were among the targets of BND-NSA’s spying. Similarly, Airbus Group, an aerospace and defence manufacturer, is allegedly another one of the BND-NSA’s targets. After these allegations became public, Airbus announced that it plans to file a criminal complaint over the suspicion that BND aided the U.S carry out industrial espionage.

The BND is actively seeking a more substantial cooperation with NSA, since it relies on NSA intelligence. Especially now that BND needs to track German individuals travelling to Iraq and Syria and fighting for ISIS and similar terror groups and the subsequent return of these individuals back to Germany. This scandal seems to be based on BND’s efforts to increase the ties between the two intelligence agencies, even by using means and methods that would have been controversial if they ever became public knowledge, as it happened. However, the method that BND choose to promote this collaboration, with or without the German government’s knowledge as it is not clear yet, actually sabotaged its goals since it made the Germans suspicious against the United States and make it harder to promote intelligence sharing between the two countries beyond the minimum necessary.

This is not the first time such allegations have been made against BND, since in March 2014, the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper published an article that claimed that BND supplied the NSA with German citizen’s communication data from 2004 to 2008, in a project under the code name ‘’Eikonal’’. This new scandal is coming amid concerns how to balance the need for surveillance during a time where the threats against the state have multiplied and are of increased complexity. The national governments are struggling to find the balance between the need for security and the protection of the individuals’ privacy rights.

The main problem with this scandal is not based upon whether BND and NSA are collaborating in terms or intelligence sharing, but whether they exchange intelligence concerning areas well beyond anti-terrorism activities that are promoted under the need of securing German people. Additionally, through this scandal surfaced the question whether the German government knew about BND’s extended activities and if it did something to prevent it or put a halt on it. Since this is not an isolated incident the German government finds it especially difficult to persuade the public that it was ignorant of BND’s collaboration with NSA in spying on European targets. On top of that, and despite the government’s denials of being involved and its willingness to help clear up the scandal, members of Germany’s ruling parties delayed a decision on whether lawmakers should get access to secret lists detailing the extent of Germany’s intelligence cooperation with the United States. The lawmakers demanded these lists since they include search terms the NSA asked of BND to look out for while eavesdropping on international phone and data traffic.

This scandal goes along with the latest trend that finds the states trying to increase their surveillance powers under the justification of the new forms of security threats that have arose. They promote the necessity of these more intrusive measures that should be adopted even if they operate against the individuals’ privacy rights. France’s lower house recently adopted a sweeping new spying bill that would give French intelligence the power to deploy hi-tech tools such as vehicle tracking and mobile phone identification devices against individual without judicial oversight. Moreover, before the British elections, Prime Minister David Cameron had promised to authorise British intelligence agencies to read ‘’all messages sent over the Internet’’ in a package of legal provisions named as the ‘’snoopers’ carter’’ by its opponents. Germany is not an exception as it tries to increase its surveillance abilities against the security threat posed by individuals fighting alongside terror groups and many German nationals that are returning from Iraq and Syria and could potentially organise attacks inside Germany. However, BND’s actions brought the German people’s outrage both against the agency and against the German leadership, complicating the government’s plan towards the adoption of a legislation that would increase BND’s powers as it happened in other European countries. Furthermore, this scandal became another tool for the German opposition to attack Chancellor Angela Merkel inside Germany since she is already facing a lot of criticism regarding the way she handles the Greek economic crisis and the Ukrainian crisis.