VZCZCXRO5226
PP RUEHPA
DE RUEHUJA #2320/01 3051040
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 011040Z NOV 07
FM AMEMBASSY ABUJA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 1354
INFO RUEHZK/ECOWAS COLLECTIVE
RUEHOS/AMCONSUL LAGOS 8196
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHINGTON DC
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHINGTON DC
RUEKDIA/DIA WASHDC
RHMFISS/HQ USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE
RUFOADA/JAC MOLESWORTH RAF MOLESWORTH UK

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 ABUJA 002320 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR AF/W, S/CT MCKUNE 
DEPT PASS TO NCTC, DHS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/31/2017 
TAGS: KVPR PTER PREL PGOV PINR CVIS ASEC KHLS SNAR
NI 
SUBJECT: NIGERIA: GOVT. PRACTICES - INFO COLLECTION, 
SCREENING & SHARING 
 
REF: SECSTATE 133921 
 
Classified By: Political Counselor Walter Pflaumer for reasons 1.4. (b 
& d). 
 
¶1. (C) Below are responses to reftel information request on 
GON information collecting, screening and sharing. 
 
¶A. Watchlisting 
 
(C) The government of Nigeria (GON) maintains a watchlist 
which consists of binders with names and photographs of 
individuals of interest, coded by threat (terrorist, 
criminal, etc.) It is purportedly on hand at all border 
crossing posts and updated regularly.  The watchlist is 
maintained by the Department of State Services (DSS), more 
popularly known as the State Security Service (SSS) or 
"Triple S." (Note: The Department, and particularly its 
higher echelons, PolOff was told, typically refers to itself 
as the DSS, while outsiders call it the SSS. END NOTE.) 
 
(C) To put matters into perspective, the Nigerian Police 
Force does not even have a database of its own members, let 
alone a sophisticated, networked, electronic criminal or 
watchlist database.  Officials at the Economic and Financial 
Crimes Commission and police have admitted to INL Off that no 
criminal database in fact exists within the country. The 
Inspector General of Police has asked for USG help in 
developing a personnel database. (COMMENT: Given that 
political violence in Nigeria occasionally results in the 
torching of police stations, we wonder how many paper records 
remain. END COMMENT) 
 
 
¶B. Traveler Information Collection 
 
 
(C) The Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) collects Passenger 
Name Record (PNR) data on incoming passengers for commercial 
flights and vessels.  The information is archived by the 
Interior Ministry, though not electronically.  Passengers are 
screened by NIS officials as well as by DSS agents at each 
border control post. The GON maintains that it shares and 
coordinates watchlist information with neighboring countries. 
Given limited technical infrastructure and financial 
resources, advance passenger information systems are not in 
place. 
 
¶C.  Border Control and Screening: 
 
(C) Given the lack of technical infrastructure, including a 
reliable power supply, travelers are not screened or tracked 
electronically. Rather they are manually screened and 
physically tracked, if deemed necessary or appropriate. 
Hotels do report guests to the police and DSS, which has the 
capability to track both foreigners and Nigerian citizens of 
interest. COMMENT: A GON official pointed out to PolOff that 
the DSS had become very adept and practiced at monitoring 
dissidents and journalists during the Abacha regime. END 
COMMENT. 
 
(C) In principle, no entrants are simply "waived through" 
without proper credentials, but officials of various agencies 
admitted that the practice is not uncommon at border 
crossings in remote areas by members of like ethnic groups. 
No one would hazard a guess as to what percentage of border 
crossings are unrecorded, though porous borders are a problem 
Nigeria shares with most other Sub-Saharan African nations. 
All GON officials expressed an interest in any assistance - 
technical, financial, or otherwise - and training the USG 
might consider providing. (COMMENT: PolOff recently sat in on 
USG sponsored training on "Interdicting Terrorist Activities" 
for staff of the various Nigerian security agencies, held at 
the Office of the Nigerian National Security Adviser. The 
course was very well received, and generated a lot of 
goodwill and contacts for future collaborations. END COMMENT) 
 
(C) Government border control officials do have the authority 
to question, detain and deny entry to individuals who present 
themselves at points of entry (POEs). Supposedly, each border 
post has agents of not only the NIS, but also DSS and the 
 
ABUJA 00002320  002 OF 004 
 
 
National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA). 
 
(C) According to the Office of the National Security Adviser 
(ONSA), information sharing within the Nigerian government 
functions reasonably well, though INL Off maintains he has 
seen little evidence of information sharing at all. The DSS 
in particular is reputed to share the least. 
 
¶D. Biometric Collection 
 
(C) On July 27, 2007 the GON introduced e-passports which 
contain a data chip, produced in accordance with the 
parameters and safety procedures of the International Civil 
Aviation Organization (ICAO).  The new e-passports include 
biometric data in the form of fingerprints and digital 
photographs embedded electronically. The new system, to be 
phased in over three years, will allow for the development of 
an electronic database of 20-30 million records, according to 
an official in the Customs and Immigration section of the 
Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA).  The Interior Ministry 
currently has cumulative paper records of 5 million passports 
issued. (COMMENT: Even with widespread poverty, this number 
seems remarkably low for the number of passports ever/ever 
issued in a country of more than 140 million people. END 
COMMENT) The new database, which is in the process of being 
compiled from new passport applications, will help eliminate 
problems of double acquisition of passports, substitution and 
identity theft. Currently there is no plan to computerize the 
old records, as old passports will phase out over the next 
three years.  By the end of 2010, all Nigerian passports will 
be e-passports, and the old ones will be invalid. 
Fingerprints for the new passports are taken flat, not 
rolled.  As of November 1, post has been unable to determine 
whether they are NIST, INT-I, EFTS, UK1 or RTID compliant. 
Will update in septel. 
 
(C) According to the Comptroller-General of the NIS, Mr. 
Chukwurah Joseph Udeh, the objective of the new documents, 
besides enhanced security, is to restore the dignity of the 
Nigerian passport and end the abuse and embarrassment of 
Nigerians, who have been subjected to ridicule and challenge 
at POEs abroad. Udeh has also said that the Federal Executive 
Council approved the deployment of 147 gates, capable of 
electronically capturing biometric data contained on the 
chips embedded in the e-passports, to all POEs across the 
country.  In addition to its four international airports in 
Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt (currently closed) and Kano, 
Nigeria has 2 principal seaports in Lagos and Port Harcourt 
and 22 official land crossings. Staff in the Office of the 
National Security Adviser have assured PolOff that they 
intend to share the public key for reading biometric passport 
data with the USG and other governments. 
 
(C) Since the biometric systems are in the process of being 
instituted and installed, the GON is unaware of any 
countermeasures to circumvent the checkpoints.  An issue of 
concern for the GON, however, is the ability of the gates to 
function adequately at remote land crossings, where reliable 
power sources may not be available. Such advanced technology 
is of little use without power. Some POEs apparently have 
neither telephone land lines, nor even reliable mobile 
telecom coverage, which restricts officers' ability to confer 
with local DSS offices regarding suspicious individuals, 
resolve questions pertaining to the watchlist, and respond 
accordingly. 
 
¶E. Passports 
 
(C) Further to the information above on the new e-passport 
system, standard procedure has been to replace lost passports 
with full validity (five years) passports that in no way 
differ from other passports issued.  GON has no special 
procedures for "habitual" losers of passports, as they have 
not previously been able to determine who such individuals 
might be, given the lack of an electronic database. 
 
(C) Post's Consular Section reports few incidents of 
fraudulent passports, given that it has been relatively easy 
to get a "real" Nigerian passport with fraudulent supporting 
documents.  Fraudulent visas, to demonstrate prior travel to, 
and return from, developed countries, are detected, however. 
 
ABUJA 00002320  003 OF 004 
 
 
In such instances, the Consular Section sends the passports 
involved to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) which 
records the names for future reference.  It is unclear if any 
subsequent action is taken at the MFA. 
 
(C) Of note, the GON issues a free, temporary travel 
document, a special "hajj passport," to low income 
individuals from rural areas to participate in the pilgrimage 
to Mecca. (COMMENT Given that these documents lack 
technological safeguards, one might expect a higher level of 
fraud, though such documents are only valid for travel to 
Saudi Arabia. Hence, said documents would pose more of a 
potential threat to Saudi Arabia, than to our interests. END 
COMMENT) 
 
¶F. Fraud Detection 
 
(C) Past Nigerian efforts at fraud detection have been 
limited. Occasionally incidents of fraud have involved 
prominent officials.  (Note: Recently a group of 50 
Nigerians, including the Deputy Minority Whip of the House of 
Representatives and other parliamentarians, were refused 
entry to Saudi Arabia upon arrival for the hajj and deported 
because their Saudi visas were found to be fraudulent.  The 
politicians involved maintained that the fraud was 
perpetrated by an unscrupulous travel agency. END NOTE.) 
 
¶G. Privacy and Data Security 
 
(C) Theoretically individuals have the right to request 
access (or sue to get access) to sensitive data about 
themselves held by Nigerian government agencies, but in 
practice it is quite difficult. Often the government of 
Nigeria will determine that such information is a matter of 
national security, and the inquiry will then die. There are 
privacy laws on the books for protecting access to sensitive 
personal data which apply to all civil servants.  In the 
future, access to the e-passport database should be easier. 
 
¶H. Immigration Data Bases 
 
(C) As discussed above, there have previously been no 
electronic databases.  Institution of the e-passport marks 
the advent of the electronic immigration database.  Even as 
the new system matures and gains more electronic records, 
access to it at all POEs remains highly doubtful, given 
Nigeria's lack of an integrated computer infrastructure 
network, not to mention problems with the country's power 
supply. 
 
¶I. Watchlist and Information Sharing 
 
See A. and B. 
 
¶J. Biometrics 
 
See D. 
 
¶K. Identifying Appropriate Partners 
 
(C) In January 2005, an anti-terrorism bill approved by the 
Cabinet was sent to the National Assembly, where it remains. 
It defines terrorism as "any action that may seriously damage 
a country or international organization, unduly compel a 
government or an international organization to perform or 
abstain from performing an action or seriously intimidate or 
destablize a population."  The bill specifically excludes 
from the definition of terrorism the disruption by protesters 
of private or government business.  COMMENT: For additional 
perspective, Nigeria, with its many and occasionally attacked 
oil platforms, has yet to ratify the 1988 UN Protocol for the 
Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Fixed 
Platforms Located on the Continental Shelf.  Domestic 
concerns and Delta politics work against the codification of 
who or what constitutes a terrorist or terrorist act. 
 
(C) Based on the past history of Nigeria's security services, 
particularly their activities during the time of military 
rule, we believe that there likely are political dissidents 
included in DSS watchlists. During the Abacha regime, files 
were kept not only on terrorists, but on individuals engaged 
 
ABUJA 00002320  004 OF 004 
 
 
in what was broadly defined as "action against the 
government," journalists, "fundamentalists" (typically with 
connections to Iran or Pakistan), and even evangelical 
missionaries. The likely inclusion of such individuals on 
watchlists for purely political reasons would pose problems 
for U.S. cooperation. 
 
(C) Although Nigeria's judicial system has made significant 
strides in the past year in asserting its independence, it 
remains subject to corruption, influence and political 
manipulation.  Post believes that at present the judiciary is 
not capable of providing adequate safeguards for the 
non-disclosure and protection of information.  With continued 
movement toward judicial independence and a seemingly strong 
commitment to the rule of law from the current Yar'Adua 
Administration, the situation may improve in the coming 
years, at which time a fresh assessment of the situation will 
be warranted. END COMMENT. 
PIASCIK