An anonymous whistleblower in Nigerian cyberspace, PIDOM Nigeria, has gone missing, and his social media accounts have been compromised, an exposé by Investigative Journalist, David Hundeyin reveals.
In the expose published on Thursday, Hundeyin detailed how someone suspected to be working for the government reached out to him through PIDOM’s X account and attempted to hack into his (Hundeyin’s) WhatsApp account.
PIDOM had been missing since August 5, and some persons had been posting from his X account in order to conceal his disappearance.
The person, who disguised as an associate of PIDOM, told Hundeyin that the Police had arrested the whistleblower and is being detained at the Force Criminal Investigation Department (FCID) in Abuja.
“For those who do not know him, PIDOM is an anonymous Nigerian whistleblower who has gained fame and notoriety over the past 4 years for a series of high-profile document leaks and online exposés showcasing various appendages and apparatchiks of the Nigerian government at their malfeasant, abominable worst.
His leaks have caused embarrassment at the highest levels of government multiple times, resulting in multiple high-level warnings from the Presidency to the civil service invoking the Official Secrets Act. This happened most recently in June,” Hundeyin wrote.
The purported Associate who pleaded with Hundeyin not to report the arrest said he had been instructed by PIDOM to hand over login credentials of his social media accounts to Hundeyin to disprove his link to the whistleblowing account.
He added that, PIDOM was given “stringent bail conditions” that are almost impossible to meet.
Hundeyin noted that in the course of his exchange with the person, attempts were made to uncover his location and also hack into his WhatsApp account through surveillance technologies that are only accessible to security agencies like the DSS, DIA.
“The fact that this person (or persons) kept tweeting from PIDOM’s account after the 5th of August (and did not need my help trying to sound like him), meant that they had another reason for wanting to get me involved now, 17 days after the fact,” Hundeyin noted.
He added: “The purpose of giving me wrong login details could have been to attempt to view my IP address – and thus track my physical location. Unfortunately, I happen to use a VPN pointed permanently at Lagos, Nigeria or Accra, Ghana.”
It was also discovered that PIDOM’s Tether and Bitcoin addresses were among the Crypto funds of alleged sponsors of the #EndBadGovernance protests, reportedly frozen by the Nigerian government.
Hundeyin said the attempt to get him involved in PIDOM’s disappearance through the social media login credentials is probably to conceal the disappearance or cover up with controversy.
“What if the attempt to rope me into the narrative management surrounding his disappearance is an attempt by Nigerian intelligence to conceal their torture and/or murder of a prominent whistleblower?” he added.
Source: westafricaweekly.com