By Pascal Oparada
Few Nigerians were aware of the ferocious battle that went on during the 2015 election campaigns. TheNiche has pieced together series of information of how foreign firms, hired by sympathizers of former President Goodluck Jonathan spent millions to sway the presidential election in favour of the former president.
In a story by The Guardian, titled, “Cambridge Analytica’s ruthless bid to sway the vote in Nigeria,” the newspaper detailed the shenanigans that were employed by supporters of Jonathan to ensure that President Muhhamadu Buhari never emerge Nigeria’s president.
The paper stated that Cambridge Analytica was approached and engaged by a yet to be named Nigerian billionaire who supported Jonathan and was ready to splurge huge sums of money to tilt the 2015 elections in Jonathan’s favour.
“It was the kind of campaign that was our bread and butter,” says an ex-Analytica employee.
“We’re employed by a billionaire who’s panicking at the idea of a change of government and who wants to spend big to make sure that doesn’t happen,” employees of Cambridge Analytica said.
Seven individuals who are conversant with the campaigns in Nigeria described how Cambridge Analytica worked with people believed to be Israeli computer hackers.
The sources said that they were looking for what they called ‘Compromat’ on Buhari, meaning anything that was damaging to the All Progressives Congress flag bearer for the presidential poll.
The sources said the hackers offered Cambridge Analytica access to private information about Buhari.
The content was private emails, information related to Buhari’s financial and medical records.
Analytica staff freaked out and refused the contents, which was contained in a flash drive downloaded from a laptop by the Israeli hackers.
Cambridge Analytica, through its parent company, SCL Elections, was hired in the guise that they were ready to assist in form of advertisement to help Jonathan’s Campaign.
The Nigerian billionaire who financed the deal wanted complete discretion.
He told the firm that he had about $2 million to splurge.
“There were a lot of scared millionaires worried that Buhari would get in. It was all very last-minute. A team flew out to Abuja and put together a communications campaign. It was a straightforward, normal comms campaign in most respects,” the employee said.
The campaign against Buhari was very calumnious and hinged on the perception that Buhari was a Muslim extremist who would impose sharia in all of Nigeria.
Cambridge Analytica used a lot of disturbing videos in the campaign, targeting voters from the Northern part of Nigeria.
Sometime in 2015, stories were rife on social media that an Israeli firm was hired by the then Federal Government to harvest and monitor the email addresses of Nigerians. It turned out that Cambridge Analytica was the firm.
Back home in Nigeria, advertisements were flying all over the place which purported that President Buhari was mortally sick.
One of such campaigns was one by Ekiti State governor, Ayodele Fayose, in which he put the photograph of Buhari alongside that of the late Umar Musa Yar’Adua, who died in May 2010 while serving as Nigeria’s President.
Many slammed Fayose for a tasteless advertisement.
Sources say Fayose relied on the information of the Israeli hackers in the advertisement.