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      Ahead of Nigeria’s Election, a Cash Shortage Causes Chaos and Suffering

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      Nigeria’s government changed the currency design before the presidential election, causing shortages and wreaking social havoc.Fights are breaking out in bank A.T.M. lines where people queue for days, just to withdraw a maximum of around $40. Cash shortages are so severe that many cannot buy food or medicine, despite having money in the bank. Protesters are venting their anger by burning down banks.A decision by Nigeria’s government to replace its currency with newly designed bills within just four months — with a deadline of Feb. 10 — has thrown Africa’s largest democracy into chaos as it heads toward a presidential election scheduled for this Saturday, Feb. 25.Most Nigerians turned in their old currency, called the naira, as they were told to do in October by the Central Bank of Nigeria. But when they tried to withdraw the new notes, from banks or even informal money brokers, they were stunned to find that few were available.The cash crisis is now an enormous and unpredictable factor in an election that was already Nigeria’s most wide-open race in years. The presidential candidates for the two major parties, which have alternated power for over two decades and failed to address widespread poverty and insecurity, are now facing a surprise, third-party challenger.The government has not made clear what it is trying to accomplish with the currency makeover, offering a gamut of explanations including that it is trying to rein in counterfeiting and cash hoarding. But the effort has been a disaster, and some suspect there may be a political motive behind the mess because of the timing.Voters are now furious at the governing party over the shortage of bank notes, which could undermine support for the party’s candidate. Protests, if they continue, could disrupt elections in parts of the country. Turnout could be affected as some voters struggle to afford to travel to faraway polling stations.Blessing Akor, 22, was on the verge of tears as she was jostled and elbowed by dozens of people waiting in line for an A.T.M. in central Abuja. That morning at 4 a.m., she had left her baby daughter with a neighbor she didn’t really trust, and went in search of cash.The heat was intense, but Ms. Akor had little choice; despite having money in her account, she had no cash for food, water or even the bus fare home. She was incandescent with rage at the government, and said she would not vote for any Nigerian politician.“We’ve been in hell, serious hell,” she said, watching as a man in military uniform cut to the front of the line. “It’s choking — as if they are pressing my throat.”So-called point-of-service operators stand on street corners with card machines, offering withdrawals, essentially functioning as human A.T.M.s. Taiwo Aina for The New York TimesNormally, cash is Ms. Akor’s livelihood. Since Nigeria has few commercial bank branches and A.T.M.s, many people get their cash from professional agents who act as human A.T.M.s., known as P.O.S., or point of service, operators. Ms. Akor is among legions of such operators, who stand on street corners throughout the country with small stocks of cash and mobile card machines, offering cash to cardholders in return for a small fee.Right now, though, cash is in such short supply that those fees are astronomical.Prince Chibeze, 37, ducked under a P.O.S. operator’s umbrella in Lagos last week and asked the price for withdrawing 5,000 naira. A construction worker who earns around 9,000 naira daily, he had spent hours searching for cash to send home to his parents, who were running out of food. But every P.O.S. operator was demanding 30 percent — 1,500 naira — a huge jump from the usual fee of 100 naira.Initially, Godwin Emefiele, the Central Bank governor, said the currency had to be redesigned because Nigerians were hoarding notes in their houses. He then said it would help prevent counterfeiting and kidnappers’ ransom payments, and that it was a step toward achieving a cashless society. Later, he also claimed it would reduce inflation — which has risen to a crippling 21 percent.But some analysts, politicians and dozens of Nigerian voters said that the real reason was to stem vote buying by foiling politicians who had stockpiled naira ahead of election day.Last week, President Muhammadu Buhari said that it had reduced the influence of money on politics, and many Nigerians spoke approvingly of the policy in interviews. But some warned that voters might be so desperate for cash that they would more readily sell their votes.President Buhari has served two terms, and could not run again. The governing All Progressives Congress (A.P.C.) party selected Bola Tinubu, a former governor of Lagos, as its candidate for president.But one of Mr. Tinubu’s rivals in the presidential primary was the head of the Central Bank, Mr. Emefiele. Mr. Tinubu’s allies assert that the Central Bank and a group of people around the president are trying to exact revenge, plotting to ensure Mr. Tinubu suffers massive losses by inciting Nigerians’ anger at the government.One A.P.C. state governor even claimed that they were trying to “provide a fertile foundation for a military takeover.”A campaign poster for Bola Tinubu, the ruling party candidate, at a market in Lagos this month.Taiwo Aina for The New York TimesSome critics even accuse President Buhari of trying to make Mr. Tinubu lose the election — allegations that Mr. Buhari, who has campaigned with Mr. Tinubu, has denied.This is the second time Mr. Buhari has rushed a currency redesign; the first was almost four decades ago, after he took power in a coup d’état. That time, he gave Nigerians less than two weeks to exchange their naira.How severe the shortage of new naira is this time is unclear. Mr. Emefiele has only vaguely referred to “challenges in the distribution” of notes, blaming commercial banks for not loading them into A.T.M.s. Neither he nor the president’s spokesmen could be reached for comment.While political infighting intensifies, the disruption to ordinary life is extraordinary.Angel Christopher pulled her children out of school, unable to pay the fees, because she is selling so few vegetables to cash-strapped customers at the Garki Model Market in Abuja. Hungry diners at a lunch spot ate reduced portions of banga soup — stew made with palm fruit — because the chef, Theresa Tota, can’t afford to buy as many ingredients.A livestock owner desperate for cash in northeast Borno sold his sheep for a fraction of the usual price. At Ocean Blue strip club in Lagos, lap dancers have started accepting bank transfers. Uber drivers now routinely phone passengers before pickups to ask if they’re paying cash — and if not, they cancel.Lines at a gas station in Lagos.Taiwo Aina for The New York TimesNigerians with bank accounts try to pay with cards and bank transfers — but are frequently stymied by what they’re told are “network issues,” perhaps because the system is suddenly overloaded.The crisis has been compounded by the scarcity of fuel. Lines at gas stations rival those at A.T.M.s. Some customers sleep overnight in their vehicles to get gas, and some pay double the official price. Industry officials blame the high cost of transporting fuel to and around the country. But Nigeria is one of Africa’s biggest oil producers, and many citizens blame government mismanagement.The long-term effects of the cash crunch on Nigeria’s already-struggling economy are not clear, but when India banned the largest rupee notes in 2016, causing similar chaotic scenes, its economy slowed markedly.The rituals that many Nigerians savor are also affected.At a glamorous Lagos wedding, no wads of cash were available for showering the bride and groom with money — a Nigerian tradition.A few notes of Nigeria’s currency, the naira, are “sprayed” to celebrate a recent wedding in Lagos. Normally, there would be far more.Taiwo Aina for The New York TimesNext morning at the Citadel Church, a large Pentecostal church in Lagos, when the blue plastic offering buckets went round, congregants mimed putting cash in them. Few had notes to give. Church leaders had anticipated that: outside the auditorium were rows of card machines, and inside, bank numbers flashed on a giant screen so worshipers could transfer their tithes instead.In his sermon, the church’s celebrity pastor, Tunde Bakare — who was a 2023 ruling party presidential aspirant himself, but received no delegates’ votes in the primaries — railed against Nigerian politicians, including some in his own party.“Today our nation is in dire straits; our frontline political parties and the politicians within their enclaves are at war with themselves,” he told his flock.After the service, he said in an interview that he would usually be out in the field campaigning for his party, the A.P.C., but that he refused to be “part of Ali Baba and the 40 thieves.”And though he was Mr. Buhari’s running mate in 2011, and remains close to the president, the pastor had no kind words for the chaotic currency redesign.“The policy may be good, but the implementation is terrible,” Mr. Bakare said.A screen at the Citadel Church in Lagos shows bank numbers so that churchgoers can give donations digitally because of the shortage of bank notes in Nigeria.Taiwo Aina for The New York TimesOladeinde Olawoyin contributed reporting from Lagos, Nigeria, and Rahila Lassa from Abuja, Nigeria. 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      Peter Obi Has Energized Nigeria’s Young Voters. Will They Turn Out for Him?

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      The race is wide open in the presidential election in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation and a struggling economic powerhouse. Youth looking to evict the old guard are cheering on Peter Obi, a surprise third-party candidate.As the convoy of S.U.V.s pulled up to the biggest electronics market in Lagos, Nigeria’s economic capital, word quickly spread that inside one vehicle with tinted windows was Peter Obi, one of the front-runners in the upcoming presidential election, on a surprise campaign stop. Within minutes, a large crowd of mostly young men had gathered.“If I told them I was coming, they’d have shut down the market — it would have been ten times this,” Mr. Obi said, smiling, looking out at his roaring fans from under a cap that read: “Make Nigeria Great.” Then he stepped out in front of the sea of smartphones held aloft to record the occasion.“A new Nigeria is possible,” he told the crowd in his distinctive high voice. “For the first time, government is going to care about you.”For eight years, the citizens of Africa’s most populous nation — 70 percent of them under the age of 30 — have been governed by Muhammadu Buhari, who previously ruled the country as a military dictator, in the 1980s, long before most of them were even born.In a country where vote-buying and violence often distort elections, the presidential vote scheduled for Feb. 25 presents a rare chance for millions of young Nigerians, many of them new voters, to make their elders listen.According to polls, many of these new voters support Mr. Obi, a former state governor challenging the traditional two-party hegemony by running with the lesser-known Labour Party. He is seen as the candidate of the youth, though far from young at 61; his main rivals are in their 70s. Mr. Buhari, who is 80, served the maximum of two terms.“A one-eyed man, in the land of the blind, is king,” said Mr. Obi’s running mate, Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, in an interview.Mr. Obi, seen as the candidate of Nigeria’s youth, drew an enthusiastic young crowd at Alaba market, Lagos, this month.Taiwo Aina for The New York TimesNigeria, and particularly its young people, have had an extremely tough few years. Large groups of schoolchildren have been kidnapped, by extremists or ransom seekers. Youth unemployment nearly tripled during the Buhari years. Demonstrators in peaceful protests against police brutality were themselves shot dead by security forces in 2020 as they sang and waved the flag by a tollgate in Lekki, an upmarket Lagos suburb.Many young people are channeling their anger at the government’s repressive response to that movement — as well as the failure to bring those responsible to justice, a seven month Twitter ban, and persistent police brutality — into this election.“What happened in Lekki is a clear indication that this government don’t care about the youth,” said Amanda Okafor, 28, who said she saw many fellow protesters shot dead in Lekki. Ms. Okafor was eligible to vote in the past two elections, but never did. Now she goes everywhere with her voter’s card, determined to cast her first-ever vote.“We’re tired of these same old people coming in to tell us that they’re going to change stuff for us and they’re not doing anything,” she said.For many young Nigerians, these “same old people” include the presidential candidate of the party in power, Bola Tinubu, a former Lagos governor with a strong southwestern base, and the slogan, “It’s my turn.” He sometimes slurs words and appears confused, alarming some voters.Minutes after he arrived at the Alaba electronics market, Mr. Obi’s visit began to go viral. Taiwo Aina for The New York TimesThe old guard also includes the candidate of the opposition People’s Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar — a former vice president running for president for the sixth time. He will likely garner much support in Nigeria’s northern states.In an interview, Mr. Obi said that young people invest so much hope in him because the leaders they had known never cared for them or Nigeria. He said it was an “existential election” for the country.“We’re not going to solve the problem of Nigeria overnight, because it’s huge,” he said.His rivals, Mr. Abubakar and Mr. Tinubu, did not respond to requests for interviews.Minutes after he arrived in Alaba electronics market, Mr. Obi’s unexpected visit began to go viral. As the convoy left for yet another rally, social media-savvy Obi supporters — nicknamed Obidients — mobbed the vehicles, unsure which one their hero was in. Eventually, he popped out of a sunroof, blowing kisses to the crowd.“No shishi!” yelled the supporters running alongside his car — a slogan that, roughly, means “My vote is not for sale.”“No shishi” is exactly the kind of change that Onyx Ahmed, 21, would like to see. A recent anatomy graduate and protester against police violence, she retweets Peter Obi’s posts, blocks supporters of his rivals, and hectors her friends to register to vote.But in June, when she went to collect her own voter’s card, upon seeing the long lines, she quickly gave up.“I was like, I’ll go home, and come back. I never went back,” she said, wincing, but only slightly. “I don’t really like stress.”Supporters of the incumbent All Progressives Congress party, whose candidate, Bola Tinubu, is a former Lagos governor, at a rally in Lagos this month.Taiwo Aina for The New York TimesAnalysts warn Ms. Ahmed’s attitude may be common, and say that newly registered voters are least likely to show up at the polls. Mr. Obi’s political opponents wield this idea to mock his supporters, dismissing them as just a few irrelevant armchair warriors.But the Obidients give as good as they get. When Adams Oshiomhole, a former governing party chairman, told a television channel that Mr. Obi’s online support was “just 10 young men and women in one room” churning out stories, the Obidients changed his words to the catchier “Four people tweeting in a room.” That became a catchphrase, posted alongside image after image of thronging crowds at Obi rallies.But there are other reasons young Obi supporters may not turn out. Many tried for days to obtain voters’ cards, but never made it to the front of interminable queues. Others cannot afford to travel to the states where they are registered to vote.And their numbers may be overwhelmed by the get-out-the-vote machines built over decades by the governing All Progressives Congress party, and its longtime rival, the P.D.P. Each has local branches, women’s and youth groups nationwide, and affiliations with workers’ groups like that of Lagos’s market women, to mobilize voters come election day.The reach of this party machinery was on display at Adebayo market in Bariga, a Lagos suburb, where customers sashayed down lanes crammed with jollof rice seasoning, diapers, hair weaves and zippers.The governing party has deep ties among the people who work at the Bariga market in Lagos.Taiwo Aina for The New York TimesThe market’s financial secretary took me around, making introductions to women working there, including Olabisi Onisarotu, selling baby care products. She said she was supporting Mr. Tinubu, because as Lagos governor, he had provided free education and good health care.She glanced over my shoulder at the financial secretary, who was making sure she stuck to the script.“Social amenities,” he mouthed.“And social amenities,” Ms. Onisarotu repeated.Around the corner in a general goods store, the market coordinator, 72-year-old Gbemisola Lawal, complained that the policies of the A.P.C. had run the economy into the ground, driving her customers away. But that wouldn’t change her vote, she said — or that of her small army of market women.“This market belongs to A.P.C.,” said Ms. Lawal. “We’ve always voted A.P.C. and we’ll always vote A.P.C.”Left: Onyx Ahmed, 21, who hectors her friends to vote for Mr. Obi but did not collect her own voter’s card. Right: Gbemisola Lawal, 72, coordinator of Adebayo market, whose market women, she said, would all vote for Mr. Tinubu.Taiwo Aina for The New York TimesEven so, cracks are appearing in the traditional parties’ machinery. Near the market, the driver of a yellow danfo, or minibus, said that this year he would defy his A.P.C.-supporting transport union, follow his conscience, and vote for Mr. Obi.But the driver would not give his name, saying it would cost him his job.Back in Mr. Obi’s convoy, his Labour Party colleagues — traveling in the luxury van behind his car — strategized about when he should stay hidden (in the neighborhood of his opponent, Mr. Tinubu) and when he should pop out of the sunroof and wave (in areas dominated by people from the southeast, Mr. Obi’s home region). Calls from the rally they were headed toward reported members being attacked by thugs.“They should fight back,” one of them ordered.The convoy drew up at the rally, where the crowds sang along with the musical duo P-Square, who like many Nigerian musical stars, are proud Obidients. On the sidelines, dozens of young people insisted they would turn out to vote, violence or not.The stakes were too high for them not to, they said.An Obi rally in Lagos this month. Many young Obi supporters tried to obtain voters’ cards but never made it to the front of the lines. Others cannot afford to travel back to the states in which they are registered to vote.Taiwo Aina for The New York TimesOladeinde Olawoyin contributed reporting. More

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      in US Politics

      Revealed: the US adviser who tried to swing Nigeria’s 2015 election

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      Revealed: the US adviser who tried to swing Nigeria’s 2015 electionSam Patten, an American consultant later mired in controversy, exploited emails obtained by Tal Hanan’s team In late December 2014, a team from Cambridge Analytica flew to Madrid for meetings with a handful of old and new contacts. A member of the former Libyan royal family referred to as “His Royal Highness” was there. So, too, was the son of a US billionaire, a Nigerian businessman and a private Israeli intelligence operative.For Alexander Nix, the Etonian chief executive of Cambridge Analytica, and his new employee Brittany Kaiser, who networked like most other people breathed, there may have been nothing unusual about such a gathering.But, by any other measure, it was an unlikely ensemble, not least because last week the identity of the intelligence operative was revealed to be Tal Hanan: an Israeli “black ops” mercenary who, it is now known, claims to have manipulated elections around the world.Hanan, who operates using the alias “Jorge”, has boasted of meddling in more than 30 elections. His connection to the now defunct Cambridge Analytica offers a revealing insight into what appears to have been a decades-long global election subversion industry.Hanan’s group, “Team Jorge”, was unmasked by an international consortium of media, including the Guardian and Observer, which revealed the hacking and disinformation tactics it uses to try to sway elections.Quick GuideAbout this investigative seriesShowThe Guardian and Observer have partnered with an international consortium of reporters to investigate global disinformation. Our project, Disinfo black ops, is exposing how false information is deliberately spread by powerful states and private operatives who sell their covert services to political campaigns, companies and wealthy individuals. It also reveals how inconvenient truths can be erased from the internet by those who are rich enough to pay. The investigation is part of Story killers, a collaboration led by Forbidden Stories, a French nonprofit whose mission is to pursue the work of assassinated, threatened or jailed reporters.The eight-month investigation was inspired by the work of Gauri Lankesh, a 55-year-old journalist who was shot dead outside her Bengaluru home in 2017. Hours before she was murdered, Lankesh had been putting the finishing touches on an article called In the Age of False News, which examined how so-called lie factories online were spreading disinformation in India. In the final line of the article, which was published after her death, Lankesh wrote: “I want to salute all those who expose fake news. I wish there were more of them.”The Story killers consortium includes more than 100 journalists from 30 media outlets including Haaretz, Le Monde, Radio France, Der Spiegel, Paper Trail Media, Die Zeit, TheMarker and the OCCRP. Read more about this project.Investigative journalism like this is vital for our democracy. Please consider supporting it today.Three reporters in Israel went undercover, pretending to be consultants trying to delay an election in a politically unstable African country. They secretly filmed more than six hours of Team Jorge’s pitches, including a live demonstration by Hanan showing how he could use hacking techniques to access the Telegram and Gmail accounts of senior political figures in Kenya. Hanan did not respond to detailed requests for comment but said: “To be clear, I deny any wrongdoing.”Previously unpublished emails leaked to the Observer and Guardian proved that Hanan had interfered in the 2015 Nigerian presidential election, in an attempt to bolster the electoral prospects of then incumbent president Goodluck Jonathan – and discredit Muhammadu Buhari, his main rival. And he did it in coordination with Cambridge Analytica.There is no suggestion that Jonathan knew of either Cambridge Analytica or Team Jorge’s ultimately failed attempts to get him re-elected. And the campaign had nothing to do with the hack of Facebook data that propelled the company into the headlines in 2018.Instead, its most salient feature was a classic dirty tricks campaign. Team Jorge obtained documents from inside the opposition campaign of Buhari that could later be leaked to the media. Cambridge Analytica did the leaking.That episode has been drawn sharply into focus in recent days. But one name so far not mentioned has been that of Sam Patten, the consultant who managed Cambridge Analytica’s campaign on the ground in Nigeria. Three years later, Patten would come to be known as a cooperating witness in Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US election.A former state department official, Patten was ultimately charged and pleaded guilty to acting as an unregistered foreign agent to a Ukrainian oligarch. And among a memorable cast of characters who wound up as part of Mueller’s investigation, Patten’s business partner, Konstantin Kilimnik, stood out: he was a Russian spy.A spy who allegedly passed polling data – processed by Cambridge Analytica – from the Trump campaign to Russian intelligence in 2016 and planted false narratives about Ukraine in the 2020 election. Kilimnik was later subjected to sanctions by the US Treasury, which described him as a “known Russian intelligence services agent implementing influence operations on their behalf”. He has denied that he worked for Russian intelligence.A campaign so dirty it panicked staffClose readers of the Observer may fuzzily recall some elements of this story from our coverage of the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018. In the news frenzy that followed the Observer and New York Times revelations about the illicit (and now known to be illegal) heist of millions of people’s Facebook data, one story got lost in the mix.Four days after the original report in the Observer, we published a series of follow-up stories in the Guardian about a campaign so dirty that, even at the time, employees worried that they were implicated in illegal activity. This was the Nigeria campaign that resurfaced this week, with the unmasking of Hanan finally solving the mystery of the identity of the “Israeli consultants” referenced in the story.In 2018, some employees knew Hanan as “Jorge” but his true identity was unknown. Kaiser, grilled by MPs in parliament, said she could not “recall” his name, and she did not know about his activities until after the event.Emails leaked to the Guardian and Observer reveal when Nix asked her the real name of “Jorge” from “the Israel black ops co” in May 2015, she replied: “Tal Hanan is CEO of Demoman International.”Kaiser told the Observer that her parliamentary testimony had been a “daunting experience”, adding: “I didn’t remember the name of the Demoman company when asked.” She said she had no prior knowledge of the methods Team Jorge would end up using in Nigeria, and downplayed her role in the campaign.Observer front pagesCambridge Analytica and Team Jorge were, she said, working “separately but in parallel” for the same client – the Nigerian businessman both sides had met during the gathering in Madrid. “Alexander flew in for this one to pitch the Nigerians and separately so did Jorge,” Kaiser recalled.After the Madrid meeting, Kaiser said, she was not involved in any “operational matters with Jorge” in relation to the Nigeria campaign, which was led by a team on the ground. “I sent some emails to put everyone in contact with each other and sort out who was doing what as time was short,” she added.The emails suggest that Patten would, as part of his role at Cambridge Analytica, take responsibility for exploiting the material that Hanan obtained from the Nigerian opposition. Despite anxiety over the material, which panicked staff had assumed had been “hacked”, someone at Cambridge Analytica combed through the documents, looking for dirt on the opposition candidates.And it was Patten who appears to have leaked select documents to BuzzFeed and the Washington Free Beacon.‘Ghost’ campaign in NigeriaIn January 2015, Patten found himself parachuted into Abuja, Nigeria, to lead a last-minute $1.8m “ghost” campaign for SCL (Cambridge Analytica) in support of President Jonathan and against Buhari. Kaiser had helped land the contract in her first weeks with the company.In her memoir, Targeted, she writes that it was her friend, a former Libyan prince, who introduced her to “wealthy Nigerian oil industry billionaires” who wanted a last-minute anonymous campaign to help get Jonathan re-elected.Emails obtained by the Observer show that Kaiser’s travel schedule in December 2014, when she was helping seal the contract, was a whirlwind of meetings across three continents with highly placed contacts and a complicated web of different, though often overlapping, projects.One was the last-minute attempt to affect the outcome of the west African election. While the wealthy Nigerian client hired Cambridge Analytica and Team Jorge on separate contracts, the expectation was that both sides would coordinate.Within a fortnight of the Madrid meeting, Patten flew into Abuja. He is understood to have coordinated with others in the country against Buhari – among them Hanan, who sources say he met in a hotel in Abuja. Another Team Jorge operative working in Nigeria did so under the alias “Joel”.Hanan claimed in emails that they had entered the country on a “special visa”. A highly placed source told the Observer in 2017 that the Israeli contractors travelled on Ukrainian passports and that their fee for work in Nigeria – $500,000 – was transmitted via Switzerland into a Ukrainian bank account.A busy time for Sam PattenIn press reports, Patten has said he was not involved in Cambridge Analytica’s controversial data-targeting practices. The work he performed for the now defunct firm, he told New York magazine in 2019, was more “standard”, described as analysis, speechwriting, ads and “attempts to sway the media”.But the consortium’s investigation and previous reporting by the Observer suggest a different story. It was a busy time for Patten, whose work in Nigeria took place days before he founded a new company – Begemot Ventures – with Konstantin Kilimnik, the Ukrainian-born political consultant alleged to be a Russian intelligence agent by the US government.According to the emails, Patten flew to London at the end of January. That was where, according to the subject line of one email, a “final sweep” of the material that Team Jorge had obtained using deceptive measures was undertaken. There is no evidence that Patten knew about the nefarious methods through which that material had been obtained by the IsraelisBut others at the firm were alarmed. Cambridge Analytica employees who worked in the company’s office in Mayfair, central London, told the Observer in 2018 how they had been given a thumb drive by two Israeli operatives, one of whom is now known to be Hanan. Employees described their panic when they realised they were looking at private emails that they assumed had been illegally hacked, with one said to have “freaked out”.Do you have information about Tal Hanan or ‘Team Jorge’? For the most secure communications, use SecureDrop or see our guide.Kaiser told parliament that episode was “concerning”. But she said she did not believe the emails had been “hacked” in the classic sense, via computer, but by a person hired by the Israeli team to physically infiltrate the Buhari campaign and illicitly download them there.Whatever the case, it was Cambridge Analytica’s job to search for dirt. We “continue to analyse the information that we received from Jorge to see if there is anything that would ignite the international press”, an employee told a representative of the client. “If we find something, then we will push it.”Patten, it would appear, was focused on exactly that. The problem was that the data dump was disappointing. Referring to “the matter that brought us back to London”, Patten asked colleagues: “Did anyone come up with anything that could be of interest? My overall read is that, while a good insight into campaign thinking, there are few silver bullets or smoking guns.”He added that he would “use the AKPD bits”. That was a reference to emails revealing that AKPD Message and Media, the political consultancy founded by David Axelrod, a former chief strategist to Barack Obama, had briefly been hired by the Buhari campaign.“What are our media pitch angles?” Patten asked the next day, in an email enumerating three points, including that “B’s [Buhari’s] actual positions are obscured by a slick ‘change’ campaign steered by well-heeled American consultants”.Hours later, he sent another email: “Boom. Story 1 in progress, background sources needed, off the record, who other than me can do?” He then sent another email to clarify that he needed someone on the team to speak to a journalist to tell them Buhari, the leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), was “running a tight, American-style campaign with discipline and a scripted message”.Five days later, an article appeared in BuzzFeed headlined “Firm founded by David Axelrod worked in Nigerian election as recently as December”. It referenced “emails between top APC officials obtained by BuzzFeed News”, which echoed Patten’s talking points.On the same day, another article appeared in the Washington Free Beacon that also referenced the leaked emails. It cited “a series of emails” obtained by the conservative news website “between senior APC party members and advisers”.BuzzFeed declined to comment. The Washington Free Beacon did not respond to a request for comment. When reached by phone, Patten said he had no recollection of a man named Tal Hanan or Jorge, and was “not involved” in anything having to do with the “Israeli hackers” who were previously the subject of media attention.When asked whether he had ever contacted reporters to discuss AKPD working for Buhari, he paused. “I’m not going to get into that,” he said, before ending the conversation. He did not respond to further requests for comment. Nix did not respond to questions, other than to say this newspaper’s “purported understanding is disputed”.TopicsCambridge AnalyticaDisinfo black opsEspionageNigeriaGoodluck JonathanMuhammadu BuhariAfricaUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      in Elections

      Nigerian Election 2023: What to Know

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      The presidential election this month in Africa’s most populous country is completely unpredictable. An unexpected third candidate with a huge youth following may upend decades of traditional politics.Nigerians go to the polls next week to choose a new president — one of the most important elections happening anywhere in the world this year. Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country, with about 220 million people, and what happens there reverberates across the continent and the globe.The Giant of Africa, as Nigeria is known, is at an inflection point. Nearly eight years of rule by an ailing president, Muhammadu Buhari — a military dictator turned reformed democrat — has seen the country lurch from one economic shock to the next. Over 60 percent of the people live in poverty, while security crises — including kidnapping, terrorism, militancy in oil-rich areas and clashes between herdsmen and farmers — have multiplied. Young, middle-class Nigerians are leaving the country in droves.Many Nigerians see the 2023 election as a chance to change course, and are planning to break with the two traditional parties to vote for a third candidate. Not since the rebirth of Nigeria’s democracy in 1999 has the country faced an election as nail-biting — and as wide open — as this one.When is the election?The vote is scheduled for Feb. 25, unless it is postponed, as it was in 2019, just five hours before polls were to open. The head of the Independent National Electoral Commission, or I.N.E.C., has warned that if the myriad security challenges Nigeria is facing are “not monitored and dealt with decisively,” elections could be postponed or canceled in many wards, causing a constitutional crisis.Who are the main candidates?There is Bola Ahmed Tinubu, 70, who as the candidate of the governing All Progressives Congress has serious political machinery behind him. A canny, multimillionaire former governor of Lagos, Nigeria’s biggest city, Mr. Tinubu is a Muslim from the southwest and boasts that he brought Mr. Buhari to power. His catchphrase, “Emi lo kan” — Yoruba for “It’s my turn” — speaks to his record as a kingmaker in Nigerian politics, but alienates many young voters.Officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission sort voter cards at a ward in Lagos, Nigeria, last month ahead of the presidential election in February.Pius Utomi Ekpei/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe former vice president and multimillionaire businessman Atiku Abubakar is the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, or P.D.P. Mr. Abubakar, 76, has run for the presidency five times since 1993, and this year could be his last shot. A Muslim from the north, he hopes to pick up far more votes there than he has in the past, now that he does not have to run against his old nemesis, Mr. Buhari, who had an ardent northern following.The surprise candidate is Peter Obi, 61. Hailed as a savior by a large chunk of Nigeria’s digitally savvy youth, Mr. Obi — a Christian and former governor from the southeast who has hitched his wagon to the lesser-known Labour Party — has thrown this election open. His fans — mostly young, southern Nigerians walloped by economic hardship, joblessness and insecurity — call themselves the Obidients.These are the three leading contenders among the 18 candidates in all. However, a fourth candidate worth mentioning is Rabiu Kwankwaso, 66. While unlikely to win the election, Mr. Kwankwaso, also a Muslim, could profoundly affect the result by splitting the vote in parts of Nigeria’s north, including the major state of Kano, where he has a huge base.Why does this election matter?Nearly 90 percent of Nigerians believe the country is going in the wrong direction, according to a recent survey by Afrobarometer — by far the worst perception it has ever recorded in Nigeria. For many, this election seems like a last-ditch chance to rescue their country.People waited at a bus stop with heavy traffic in Lagos last month. A recent survey found that nearly 90 percent of Nigerians believe the country is going in the wrong direction.Akintunde Akinleye/EPA, via ShutterstockA nation bursting with entrepreneurs and creative talent, Nigeria is held back by rampant insecurity, widespread unemployment, persistent corruption and a stagnating economy, which together mean that simply surviving can be a major struggle.What is different about this ballot?Recent changes in the voting system — using biometric data to ensure voters’ identities and sending results electronically rather than manually — were put in place to prevent the tampering and vote rigging that have undermined previous elections.There is no incumbent on the ballot, and for the first time in decades, there are major candidates from each of Nigeria’s three main ethnic groups: Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa-Fulani.All the usual, if unofficial, rules of Nigerian elections have been blown apart:1: It’s a battle between the two established parties. Mr. Obi broke this one when he lost the P.D.P. ticket to Mr. Abubakar but insisted on running anyway, and joined another party.2: The presidency is supposed to alternate between the north and the south, and so parties should field candidates accordingly. Mr. Buhari is a northerner, so Mr. Abubakar was expected to let a southerner helm his party. But he did not, and he may pay the price by losing the P.D.P.’s traditional southern strongholds.3: There should be a Muslim and a Christian on the ticket. Mr. Tinubu, a Muslim, bulldozed through this rule by picking a Muslim from the northeast as his running mate. That could cost him dearly in the south, too.Religious identity is a factor in Nigerian elections. Muslims celebrated the holiday of Eid al-Adha in Abuja, last year.Afolabi Sotunde/ReutersWhat does a candidate need to win?An absolute majority plus 25 percent of the vote in two-thirds of the nation’s 36 states are essential for victory. If no candidate achieves this, the election will go to a runoff — which has never happened since democracy returned but which analysts now say is a distinct possibility.Turnout is usually extremely low — around 35 percent of registered voters voted in the last election, because of insecurity, logistical problems and apathy. But this year, according to I.N.E.C., more than 12 million new voters have registered, most of them young people. The election result may hinge on whether those new voters turn out or not.Results are expected two or three days after the election.What does polling show (or not show)?Several recent polls put Mr. Obi ahead of his rivals — some by a wide margin. But what many of these surveys have in common is that a large proportion of people polled refuse to say who they are voting for or say they are undecided.One poll by the data and intelligence company Stears tried to solve this problem by making an informed guess about which way the “silent voters” would cast their ballots based on their profiles and how they responded to other questions.Stears found that if there is a high turnout on election day, Mr. Obi would most likely win by a large margin. But if, as in 2019, few people show up at the polls, Mr. Tinubu would be by far the more likely winner.Above the Ibadan expressway in Lagos, a campaign poster shows presidential candidate Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his running mate Kashim Shettima, of the governing All Progressives Congress party.Pius Utomi Ekpei/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images More

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      in World Politics

      Nigeria’s Chaos Is the World’s Chaos

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      For the past two weeks, the youth of Nigeria have been in the streets protesting the ruling order of a nation in crisis. Having seized on the theme of police brutality that inspired the massive demonstrations this year in the US, they are now challenging their government on a much broader range of issues that will define the future of the country. The demonstrations have grown to monumental proportions, and the government has begun organizing its predictably brutal response.

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      The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week on the major accomplishment of the protesters in an article with this title, “Nigerian Protesters Shut Down Africa’s Largest City, Escalating Standoff With Government.” The subtitle reads, “Authorities vow to restore order as demonstrations grow across Nigeria.”

      Here is today’s 3D definition:

      Restore order:

      What all governments attempt to do in times of revolt, with the aim of returning to the status quo of untenable, organized disorder that reigned before the revolt

      Contextual Note

      Though the drama has intensified in the course of this week and the outcome is still uncertain, the Nigerian government has already begun to deploy massive force in its effort to end the protests. Despite official denial, it is now clearly established that government security forces fired on the demonstrators on Tuesday evening in a continuous barrage that lasted between 15 and 30 minutes. They reportedly removed the security cameras from the scene and turned off the streetlights shortly before the shooting began. By Wednesday evening, Amnesty International had reported the killing of 12 protesters.

      The government did make a gesture to meet the protesters‘ demands when President Muhammadu Buhari proclaimed that the government would dissolve the specific police unit — known as the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) — blamed for excessive use of force and acts of depraved brutality. To prove their sincerity, on Sunday, the authorities, as reported by Al Jazeera, “ordered all personnel to report to the police headquarters in the capital, Abuja, for debriefing and psychological and medical examination.” But that promise of disbanding and replacing SARS had been made several times in the past and each time the same pattern of behavior and the same culture of violence returned.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The protesters are now demanding more than superficial reorganization of the police. They want to see concrete acts of justice for victims, including compensation for their families, the creation of an independent body for oversight of the police and “psychological evaluation and retraining of all disbanded SARS officers before they can be redeployed.” Having reflected on the root of the problem, they have also wisely asked for “an increase in police salary so they are adequately compensated for protecting the lives and property of the citizens.”

      Whenever a government speaks of restoring order, the order they are referring to is an expectation of docile acceptance of the system of governance they represent. At least some of the protesters appear to understand that order is not the result of calm acceptance, but of systemic coherence combined with consistency about the mission of the police focused on protecting citizens rather than the government and the established order.

      Where the government takes “order” to mean little more than a stable structure of power, in which the powerful have the means to fend off various forms of disturbance, the protesters seem to understand that the very idea of order implies systemic coherence. Any stable, functioning system relies on being able to identify, respect and manage complex dynamic principles.

      Any reliable mechanical system, such as the rotors of a helicopter, must include a series of mechanisms designed to respond to and compensate automatically for excessive force or tension. Human organizations, from nations and cities to small enterprises, must elaborate behavioral systems that permit enough flexibility to self-organize when states of disequilibrium threaten. They will include hierarchies and laws but also a culture of interaction that involves shared understanding and common reflexes. For anthropologists, that is largely what the idea of culture represents.

      The conflict in Nigeria — but the same could be said of the US today — is one between two conceptions of “order.” The first, that of the government, is an order that is imposed. The second, that of the protesters, is an order that is built on principles allowing for self-organization. To some extent, the tension between the two sums up many, if not most, of the dramas affecting democracy in the world today.

      Historical Note

      Al Jazeera quotes entertainer and entrepreneur Sidney Esiri, who sums up the logic of the events that have taken place over the past few weeks. “We the people, we are committed to peacefully protesting and exercising our rights as citizens to demonstrate for our cause,” he said, “but some arms of government, of different people, have found ways to disrupt this peaceful process and turn it into something violent so that they have the excuse to bring in the military, which is what they did yesterday.”

      This reading of the situation was confirmed by Anietie Ewang, a Nigeria researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Nigerian authorities turned a peaceful protest against police brutality into a shooting spree, showing the ugly depths they are willing to go to suppress the voices of citizens,” she stated. The UN appears to agree: “United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for an end to what he called ‘brutality’ by police in Nigeria.”

      The prospect for some reasonable, peaceful reestablishment of order seems remote. Femi Adesina, the Nigerian presidential spokesman, appealed “for understanding and calm across the nation, as the implementation of the reform gathers pace at federal and state levels.” But the protesters see that as the old trick of gaining time as the old order falls back into place. The public debate has become a question of time management — in this case, managing historical time. Esiri, better than anyone else in the leaderless movement, articulated the core question when he said to Al Jazeera that the “situation in Nigeria had gone to the point, where you have to look at it and say, ‘if not now, then when?’”

      Nigeria has a rapidly growing population that is expected to overtake the US to become the world’s third-populous country in the world by 2050. It is also one of Africa’s richest nations because of its oil reserves, but it hosts one of the highest levels of poverty in the world. “More than 55% of Nigerians are underemployed or unemployed and youth unemployment is even higher, according to official statistics,” cited by The Wall Street Journal.

      Whether consciously or not, the protesters against police brutality were inspired by this year’s demonstrations in the US. They may also have been inspired by the visible, albeit inconclusive cultural effects, of the US protests. At least for a short period, they enhanced the status of the Black Lives Matter movement, suddenly embraced by the corporate world and revealed some of the untenable chaos at the heart of a political class that is no longer capable of governing the nation in a stable or coherent way.

      These are two powder kegs, dissimilar in so many respects, but both representative of the deep contradictions of this historical moment. No one can guess how things will develop in the coming months in either Nigeria or the US. It has become unthinkable, just in terms of probability, that either nation, however the politics plays out, will manage to achieve what their establishments hope, which is to restore at least a semblance of the old order. History is taking a chaotic and violent turn. In which direction, nobody knows.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in Elections

      'Ghetto presidents': musicians risk all to take on authoritarian rule in Africa

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      They call him the “ghetto president”, and his ambition is to bring the dreams and the sounds of the streets to the corridors of power.Bobi Wine, a popular reggae star and prominent opposition MP in Uganda, will release a new album next month that addresses what he calls “the real issues people are facing – the injustices, corruption, high taxation, misrule, abuse of human rights, dictatorship.”“Rise up, African musicians, and we can accomplish the task,” Wine said in an interview. “We can’t be defeated. The more they oppress us, the stronger we become. No dictator in history has ever defeated the artists and no one will ever.” More

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      in US Politics

      Trump administration unveils expanded travel ban

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      Nationals of Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar and Nigeria affected Separate move will stop ‘diversity visas’ for Sudan and Tanzania Demonstrators rally outside in Richmond, Virginia, on Wednesday where the US court of appeals will hear arguments against Donald Trump’s existing travel ban. Photograph: Steve Helber/AP The Trump administration is expanding the reach of its controversial travel […] More