Two democracy-friendly non-governmental organisations, Human Rights Writers’ Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) and Abuja Writers’ Forum (AWF), have charged the National Assembly’s Committees on Justice and Human Rights to probe the widely circulated report that the President Goodluck Jonathan administration has awarded a $40 million internet and computer spying contract to an Israeli company Elbit Systems with headquarters in Haifa, Israel.

In a joint statement to commemorate the World Press Freedom Day endorsed by the National Coordinator of HURIWA, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, and the President of AWF, Dr. Emman Shehu, the rights groups urged President Jonathan to speak out on the widespread allegation that his government has gradually transformed itself from being democratic to a full blown dictatorship by introducing draconian measures and projects that not only offend basic democratic norms and breach fundamental human rights provisions on press freedoms and freedom of expression enshrined in the Constitution of Nigeria. Citing the alleged spying contract, which they declared illegal, HURIWA and AWF alleged that Jonathan’s “regime has become one of the worst enemies of media freedom in the world as encapsulated in a recent report by an international media rights organisation, Committee for the Protection of Journalists.

The groups made references to Section 37 of the Constitution, which says: “The privacy of citizens, their homes, correspondences, telephone conversations and telegraphic communications is hereby guaranteed and protected” and also Section 39(1) which provides thus: “Every person shall be entitled to freedom of expression, including freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart ideas and information without interference.”

They tasked Senate President David Mark and Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives Aminu Tambuwal to use their good offices as heads of the national legislature that is constitutionally empowered to provide oversight functions on the executive to protect and safeguard democracy by instituting public hearing sessions in transparent ad accountable fashion to uncover the veracity or otherwise of the allegation that the Federal Government has indeed awarded a national internet spying contract to a foreign firm which breaches the Nigerian constitution and threatens the sovereignty of the country.

HURIWA and AWF also cited Section 39(2) of the Constitution of Nigeria which provides thus: “Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1) of this section, every person shall be entitled to own, establish and operate any medium for the dissemination of information, ideas and opinions.” They asked that against the background of the above provisions: Isn’t it illegal and unconstitutional for the government to give out a contract worth $40m to an Israeli company to monitor Nigerian citizens using the Internet?

The groups wondered whether the National Assembly sanctioned this illegality. According to them, “It is offensive to all known international human rights conventions and laws that safeguard media freedoms and freedom of expression for the government of Nigeria to embark on a coordinated offensive against the Nigerian people in clear violation of the constitutionally protected freedoms and given that Nigeria is a member of several international organisations whereby democracy and respect for the fundamental human rights of the citizenry are inviolable and sacrosanct, it is totally reprehensible and condemnable for the Federal Government of Nigeria to have awarded the purported contract to this Israeli firm to monitor conversations of Nigerians even in their private homes.”

•Photo: President Jonathan at his desk.