NASS approves N4.8Billion to monitor Nigerian’s call and chat
The National Assembly has approved the amount of N4.8bn to be used for monitoring and censoring social media activities of Nigerians.
The approval was contained in the supplementary budget sanctioned by the Nation’s Legislators on Wednesday.
The Lawmakers approved the supplementary budget of N982 billion (982,729,695,343) for the 2021 fiscal year, against the N895 billion proposed by President Muhammadu Buhari – indicating an increase of about N87 billion.
The sum is to be handed over to the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) to monitor WhatsApp message, phone calls, text messages, among others.
Of the figure, N1.93 billion was earmarked for “WhatsApp Intercept Solution” and N2.93 billion for “Thuraya Interception Solution” – a communications system used for monitoring voice calls or call-related information, SMS, data traffic, among others.
Former Senator, Shehu Sani said of the move, “The report that the FG budgeted an equivalent of $10Million to monitor Whatsapp messages is unfortunate and wasteful.”
