By Lemmy Ughegbe, Ph.D
Some statements should never be made casually, especially in fragile democracies. They carry implications far beyond the speaker and strike at the foundations of state authority.
One such statement emerged recently when Nasir El Rufai, a former governor, publicly claimed that he had access to, and listened in on, conversations involving Nigeria’s National Security Adviser following the wiretapping of the NSA’s communication lines.
That admission, whether intended as a boast, a provocation, or a revelation, should alarm every serious Nigerian. This is not a story about personality or political rivalry. It is about the most sensitive nerve of any sovereign state: the integrity of its national security communications.
When a civilian political actor openly admits to benefitting from the interception of the NSA’s conversations, Nigeria is confronted with a grave question it cannot afford to dodge: who controls the country’s surveillance powers, and under what authority?
In any constitutional democracy, the office of the National Security Adviser sits at the heart of state security. It coordinates intelligence, manages classified information, and advises the highest levels of government on defence and national security. The confidentiality of that office is not symbolic. It is existential. Once those communications are compromised, the state itself becomes exposed.
That is why wiretapping is treated with extreme seriousness in democratic systems. Where it exists at all, it is one of the most tightly regulated powers of the state. It is subject to judicial authorisation, clear statutory limits, and institutional oversight.
Surveillance powers are granted reluctantly because history teaches a consistent lesson: when intelligence tools escape legal boundaries, democracies erode quietly from within. This is what makes the confession so disturbing.
Some commentators have gone further, describing the Act of listening in on national security conversations as potentially treasonable. That argument deserves careful consideration, not sensationalism.
Treason, in law, is not a casual label. It refers to acts that threaten the state’s security, sovereignty, or constitutional order. While not every illegal Act constitutes treason, the unauthorised interception and dissemination of national security communications strike at the very core of state security. At a minimum, it represents a serious breach of national security ethics. At worst, depending on intent, consequence, and legal findings, it could rise into far more grave territory.
What does Nigerian law actually say? The 1999 Constitution, under Section 37, guarantees citizens’ right to privacy, including the privacy of correspondence and communications. That right is not extinguished simply because one occupies a public office. Any interference must be lawful, necessary, and proportionate.
More specifically, the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, etc.) Act 2015 criminalises unlawful interception of communications. The Act makes it an offence to intercept electronic communications without lawful authority intentionally. It also criminalises the use, disclosure, or benefit from unlawfully obtained communications.
Crucially, lawful interception in Nigeria is permitted only under strict conditions, typically involving judicial authorisation and the involvement of national security agencies within defined mandates.
In other words, wiretapping is not illegal because it is surveillance. It is illegal because it is unauthorised. Listening to intercepted communications without lawful authority is not a harmless indulgence. It is a crime. Benefitting from such interception, even passively, attracts serious legal and ethical consequences. The law is clear on this point.
If the NSA’s communication lines were indeed wiretapped outside lawful procedures, then Nigeria has suffered a profound security breach. If the product of that interception reached a civilian political actor, then institutional firewalls have collapsed. And if such a claim can be made publicly without immediate, authoritative clarification, then something is deeply wrong with how seriously we treat the rule of law in matters of national security.
The most troubling aspect of this episode is not even whether the claim is ultimately true. It sounds plausible enough to be believed. In a country grappling with institutional fragility, plausibility itself becomes a warning sign.
In a healthy democracy, such an admission would trigger a swift institutional response. Investigations would be announced. Jurisdiction would be clarified. Oversight mechanisms would be activated. Boundaries would be reaffirmed. Silence would not be an option.
Here, however, silence has largely prevailed. And silence in matters of surveillance is never neutral. It signals fear, complicity, or confusion. None of these reassures citizens.
Comparative experience underscores how seriously democracies treat intelligence interception scandals.
In the United States, the Watergate scandal, rooted in illegal surveillance linked to political power, led to congressional investigations and the resignation of a sitting president.
In Germany, revelations that Chancellor Angela Merkel had been monitored triggered parliamentary inquiries and strengthened legal safeguards.
In Kenya, courts have consistently ruled that surveillance without a judicial warrant violates constitutional rights, reinforcing the principle that national security does not suspend the rule of law.
In each case, the response was not denial or silence. It was accountability.
Nigeria’s muted reaction, therefore, stands out, and not in a good way. Democracies do not survive by pretending breaches are harmless. They survive by confronting them openly, lawfully, and decisively.
There is also an ethical dimension that cannot be ignored. Benefitting from intercepted national security conversations is not insider sophistication. It is evidence of boundaries lost. In serious democracies, proximity to power does not excuse ethical collapse. It aggravates it.
The state owes Nigerians clarity. Was the NSA’s communication intercepted? By whom? Under what legal authority? With what safeguards? And how did the outcome of such an interception reach a civilian political actor? These are not hostile questions. They are democratic necessities.
If the claim is false or exaggerated, the state must say so clearly. If it is true, the state must act decisively to bring those responsible to trial, including El Rufai, a confessed beneficiary of the wiretap. What cannot continue is Ambiguity.
Ambiguity is oxygen for institutional decay. Nigeria cannot afford to treat national security as elite gossip or political theatre. A country battling insurgency, banditry, and regional instability cannot also afford internal intelligence lawlessness.
Democracies do not collapse only when soldiers take power. They collapse when rules quietly cease to be a top priority, when extraordinary powers lose oversight, and when citizens cease to believe that the state is governed by law rather than influence.
This episode should therefore be treated as a warning, not a rumour to be consumed and forgotten. If Nigeria wishes to remain a constitutional democracy, it must reaffirm a simple but vital principle: intelligence belongs to the state, surveillance must be lawful, and national security conversations must never become currency in elite rivalry. Because once the walls around intelligence fall, everything else soon follows.
Dr Lemmy Ughegbe, FIMC, CMC
Email: lemmyughegbeofficial@gmail.com
WhatsApp ONLY: +2348069716645
