Information Management and National Security: Challenges for Nigeria - Term Paper Example

We are living in a time when political empires and nation s are built and broken by the channels and processes of information diffusion. This isthe era of information; an era of the rise of electronic media as the ultimate opinion leaders of a society. Scholars have been intrigued and excited by the interplay between nationhood and the presence of an information super highway aspiring to create a global village. Enquiries in this direction have resulted in inferences like, “advances in information and communication technologies have tied the destinies of countries more closely, made them more vulnerable to international events, and intensified competition between them. (Ouma-Onyango, 1997, 9) Though information has been democratized, monopolies been deported and a level- playing field created by this information revolution, a new threat is perceived by many nation states as arising from this global communication chaos. In the words of E.O.F.Reid, “Negotiating a consensus between competing and conflicting national goals and international participation requires information and knowledge management capability on the part of the relevant national institutions (Reid, 1996, 219-30). Before considering the validity of this perception, there is a need to understand the concept of information management. “Managing the information includes identifying what should be kept, how it should be organized, where it should be held and who should have access to it” ( Leidner, 2003, 2 ). This is one simple definition provided by information management experts. "Information Management describes the means by which an organization efficiently plans, collects, organizes, uses, controls, disseminates and disposes of its information, and through which it ensures that the value of that information is identified and exploited to the fullest extent," (Queensland Information Planning Branch Information Standards, 1990) is another comprehensive definition given for information management. Returning to the first definition of information management, it is interesting to find out what happens if a nation state fails to identify what information should be kept, how it should be organized, where it should be held and who should have access to it. The centre for public integrity, an organization based in Washington, and headed by famous journalists, has cited a major example of such a failure and its consequence in its website. The website says, “The National Security Agency (NSA), the government agency responsible for collecting electronic data on threats to the United States, encountered major problems in managing its information systems and providing timely intelligence. A joint congressional inquiry found that the NSA apparently held relevant intercepts prior to the 9/11 attacks that were not processed until after the terrorists had already struck.”( www.publicintegrity.org, 2008) Here the failure on the part of NSA was in identifying, processing, and providing access to the right people of this information and it costed them their security as a nation and as a people. A glance at the various definitions of national security is imperative to place this whole discussion into perspective. “The term national security defines the problems of survival and maintenance of sovereignty that every nation state must confront” (Merino, 1989, 68) is one of them. It can be easily inferred that the failure of NSA caused a threat to national security as defined above. Richard Ullman’s comprehensive definition for national security says that, “a threat to national security is an action or sequence of events that (1) threaten drastically and over a relatively brief span of time to degrade the quality of life for the inhabitants of a state, or ( 2) threatens significantly to narrow the range of policy choices available to the government of a state or to private, nongovernmental entities ( persons, groups, corporations) within the state.” (Ullman, 1983, 129-53) This second and more inclusive definition of national security derives a very clear connection with the Queensland standard definition of information management cited above. The notion is of planning, collecting, organizing, using, controlling, disseminating and disposing of information to ensure that the value of that information is identified and exploited to the fullest extent. Here, identifying and exploiting the value of information is described as the ultimate aim. Value is defined as the “worth, utility or merit in usefulness or importance to the possessor” (www.thefreedictionary.com, 2008) and also as “the principle, standard, or quality considered worthwhile or desirable,” by standard dictionaries. (www.thefreedictionary.com, 2008) The definition given by Richard Ullman on national security includes the quality of life for the inhabitants of a state and the policy choices available to the government of a state or to private, nongovernmental entities. The possessor of information is the society and it naturally proves that national security is ensured when the value of information that it possesses is identified and fully exploited thereby maintaining the quality of life of humans and the diversity of policy choices for state or to private entities. Citing the example of Japan, J. Sigurdson points out how information management can play a crucial role in the development of a country. “Japan acknowledged its lack of natural resources early. It was therefore eager to collect and process information about the external world in order to acquire negotiating advantages. Japanese organizations have thus worked on the assumption that ‘information is their critical resource, as they have little else.” (Sigurdson,1988,142.) On the other hand, when the example of another country, Nigeria, is examined in this context, several instances of national security failure caused by inadequate information management can be noticed. Five million people use internet in Nigeria. Oil, gas, telecommunications, finance and banking are the major sectors which utilize internet and electronic networked connections for their transactions in Nigeria. Nigerians have also topped the chart of internet fraud perpetrators for a while. (Adomi, 2008, 31) The uncoordinated nature of national information systems is what poses most serious threat to national security in Nigeria. “People open cyber cafe’s without proper registration. People get access to the internet from Internet Service Providers and global system mobile communication companies without proper examination of their intents. Trans-boundary communication is carried out without adequate scrutiny or intermediary. ”(Adomi, p.38) “Most of the cyber crime perpetrators in Nigeria are found to use cyber café’s to carry out fraud” that “jeopardize social welfare as well as national security,” is the observation made by Esharenana.E. Adomi, in the book titled, Security and Software for cyber cafe’s. ( Adomi, 2008, 33) Nigeria has been progressing head on towards global economic integration via privatization. Its capital markets are already opened up for foreign play which is causing great changeovers in financial sector (Macmillan, Fiona, 2000, International Corporate Law, Hart Publishing, 167). The total integration into a global economy inevitably brings in side effects in the form of an information chaos. In Nigeria, there is a visible lacuna in the information management system where unstable, unco-ordinated, and easy abuses thrive like nowhere else ( Adomi, 2008, 34). Researchers attribute this phenomenon to the corrupt civil and military regimes that ruled this country and destroyed the economic security of the society as a whole. (Kalunta-Crumpton and Agozino, 2004, 108) The grass root level public information flow is also ailing from a massive erosion of trust in the government and its subsidiaries. One study regarding this states that, “in the case of Nigeria, members of the public have not been co-operating with the police in the area of information regarding criminal activities in their neighborhood. One reason for this is that the members of the public do not trust the police with the information.” (Adelugba and Ujomu, 2008, 111) Dapo Adelugba and Philip Ogo, in their book, Rethinking Security in Nigeria, say that, threats to national security “in the civil community level is seen in the idea of non-cooperation or the non-participation with the security agencies in communicating information necessary for the maintenance of order.” (Adelugba and Ujomu, 2008, 4 ) Most analysts agree that a “military approach to security has become a feature of Nigerian national security and state policy,” (Adelugba and Ujomu, 2008, 4). As the Nigerian newspaper, The Nation, wrote on November 17, 2008, there was an incident involving the broadcast of a news item regarding an alleged plan by President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua to resign his president ship. The news item was aired by the local television station, Channel Television. This news was supposed to have originated from the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN). Paradoxically, this agency was an official news outlet.  The Nigerian Broadcasting Commission (NBC) cancelled Channel Television station’s broadcast license as a punitive measure and sealed its premises. This raised large hue and cry from advocates of freedom of expression. After a few days, the order was revoked. News Agency of Nigeria was quick to denounce the authorship of the controversy and denied that it was the source of such news. But the email address used in circulating the resignation plan of President Yar’Adua was later found out to be owned by News Agency of Nigeria. The information management in this country had gone in a deviant path from the very beginning when the internet country-code Top-Level Domain (ccTLD) of Nigeria which is issued to each country by the Internet Society had been secured by a private party. An attempt to procure this code by the government owned Nigerian Telecommunication Limited had to stop half way due to the political turmoil that this country went through in that period. (nigeriavillagesquare, 2008) Finally, a decade later, the then President Olusegun Obasanjo declared the formation of an agency to monitor and control national internet resource sharing. Until this action was taken, all the public users of internet had to depend on free domain name addressing systems like Yahoo and Google. This meant that the government ministries and departments had to carry web addresses with prefixes like @yahoo.com and @gmail.com. (nigeriavillagesquare, 2008) The confusion regarding the spread of fake news on the minister’s resignation was described by the authorities as an attempt of some individuals aiming political gains by sabotaging national security. Instead of taking repressive measures, the government should have realized that such a fraud was possible only because the government was using private universal internet domain name addressing systems. Many prominent persons in Nigeria had been receiving similar fake e-mails and many have gone public with the e-mails that they received (nigeriavillagesquare, 2008). This particular mail was later found to be sent from a computer located in Ivory Coast. Abubakar Atiku Nuhu-Koko, a prominent columnist of Nigeria, has published some of the fake e-mails that he received and strongly suggested remedial measures to be taken by the government in one of his web articles. He has said, “All official governments’ websites/homepages and email addressing system and style must be made to conform to international practice. NiRA, NCC and the federal ministry of information and communications should be empowered to implement these standard operating practices and procedures, which are based upon internationally accepted principles, norms and ethics. Any delay will create more and more national security scares of monumental and catastrophic consequences in the future. ” (nigeriavillagesquare, 2008) On the other side of this story, the Nigerian citizens who use the platform of internet to express their democratic dissent have several times been the target of government repression in the name of national security. The US-based Nigerian blogger, Jonathan Elendu, was arrested on October 18th, 2008, by the State Security Service. He was charged with acts of sedition. Elendu had often blogged about corruption and the ecological issues related to the oil-rich Niger Delta. (nigeriancuriosity, 2008) “Harassment of editors and journalists is one means by which press is controlled in Nigeria. In 1980, for example, mass purges of newspaper staff were reported. In 1981, six senior editors were arrested and three opposition dailies were raided,” (Rhoda, Howard, 1986, 121) states Rhoda and Hassman in their extensive study on human right issues of African Subcontinent. Dapo Adalugba and Philip Ogo Ujomu redefine national security taking into consideration all the above mentioned aspects, in their book, Rethinking Security in Nigeria, by saying, “ Plato in his Republic, insists that the supreme craft of security is the art of the legislator and the educator. He emphasizes the power and role of the guardian class and the value of education for the security of the ideal state. Security comes from better enlightenment, training and lawmaking. This is then the project of security through human formation” (Adelugba and Ujomu, 2008, 7) This approach to national security enables an impartial researcher to conclude that, “good national information management helps cope with managing change and uncertainties. A proactive information and knowledge-seeking posture makes it possible to conceive policies that take stock of national capabilities and are able to advance national learning.” (Ouma- Onyango, 1997, 3) Nigeria is a country of great diversity. Yoruba, one of the rich, ethnic languages of Nigeria, and cultural avenue of information dissemination for this society, is also famously associated with the Yoruba drums which could imitate human speech if performed by an expert drummer and deciphered by a discriminating audience. Yoruba drums were reliable and divine for the people of Nigeria, an authentic communication tool, the credibility of which, neither the television channels nor internet could beat. Information and communication still have deep cultural roots for this country. (Dorsey, 2005, 25 ) Free information flow became the first casualty under the subversive military rulers who ruled Nigeria till 1999 (African Economic Outlook, 2002, 251). The military governments execution of the famous poet, Ken Saro-Wiwa in 1995 led to international sanctions, and civilian rule was finally re-established in 1999 with the election of Olusegun Obasanjo as president. (McLuckie and McPhail, 2000,127) Ethnic strife and protests over oil production in the Niger Delta still mess up this country into violent fiasco. (Obi, 2001, 53). Democracy has not totally wiped out political corruption and human rights violations from Nigeria. The victory of Umaru YarAdua in the presidential election in 2007, marred by voting irregularities and fraud, is a reminder to this fact. (Freedom in the World: The Annual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties, 1997-1998) After 35 years of military rule and dictatorship, Nigeria has been embracing democracy and free expression only for the last 11 years. Freedom of speech for this nascent democracy is only in the process of maturing into a constructive entity. (Felix Onwukike, 1997, 97) The Nobel Prize winning dramatist of Nigeria, Wole Soyinka, who spent 3 years in prison for his pro-Biafran stand, writes in his prison notes, “today all the windows are shut, and now I interpret the distant sounds of other windows pulling and banging shut. A huge human hive is muffled, blindfolded. And still I do not understand.”(Soyinka, 1972, 68) The windows should remain open in a human society. Information control by the state is justified until it crosses the threshold of democracy and self-expression. National security is also an awareness of the security of the civilians of a nation. Raising public platforms to promote healthy and open information diffusion is more important than suppressing seemingly unhealthy information. “Yoruba gods embody gradations of good and bad in each entity” (Kuyk, 2003, 137). Nigeria still needs to realize this truth in relation with information management and national security. References Ouma-Onyango, Richard, 1997, Information Resources and Technology Transfer Management in Developing Countries, Kentucky : Routledge. Reid, E.O.F, 1996, ‘ Internet developments and government diffusion: Case of Sigapore’, Proceedigs of the 9th international conference on New Information Technology, MicroUse Information, ed. C.Chen, West Newton, MA. Leidner, Dorothy.E. 2003, Strategic Information Management, Butterworth-Heinemann. Policies for the management of information within government, Information Standard No. 24, 1990, Queensland Information Planning Branch Information Standards. Publicintegrity, The, http:// www.publicintegrity.org/. Merino, Manuel Antonio Garreton, 1989, The Chilean Political Process, Kentucky: Routledge. Ullman, Richard, 1983, “Redefining Security”, International Security, Vol.8, No.1, (Summer 1983). Free dictionary, The, http:// www.thefreedictionary.com/. Sigurdson, J, Japan’s pursuit of knowledge: Reversing the flow of information, 1988, Ed.J Annerstedt and A.Jamison, Research Policy to social Intelligence : Essays for Steven Dediger, NewYork: Macmillan Press. Adomi, Esharenana.E., 2008, Security and Software for cybercafe’s, Pennsylvania : Idea Group Inc. Macmillan, Fiona, 2000, International Corporate Law, Hart Publishing. Kalunta-Crumpton, Anita and Biko Agozino, 2004, Pan-African Issues in Crime and Justice, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. Adelugba, Dapo and Philip Ogo Ujomu, 2008, Rethinking Security in Nigeria: Conceptual Issues in the Quest for Social Order and National Integration, Oxford : African Books Collective. Nuhu-Koko, Abubakar Atiku, Information Super Highway and Nigeria’s National Security Concerns, September 22, 2008, The, http:// www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/. Nigerian Curiosity, The, http:// www.nigeriancuriosity.com/. Rhoda, E, Hassmann, Howard, Human Rights in Commonwealth Africa, 1986, Rowman & Littlefield. Ouma- Onyango, Richard, 1997, Information Resources and technology Transfer Management in Developing Countries, London : Routledge. Dorsey, Lilith, 2005, Voodoo and Afro-Caribbean Paganism, Kensington Publishing Corporation. African Economic Outlook, 2002, African Development Bank, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Development Centre, OECD Publishing. McLuckie, Craig W and Aubrey McPhail, 2000, Ken Saro-Wiwa: Writer and Political Activist, Lynne Rienner Publishers. Obi, Cyril I., 2001, The Changing Forms of Identity Politics in Nigeria Under Economic Adjustment: The Case of the Oil Minorities Movement of the Niger Delta, Nordic Africa Institute. Freedom in the World: The Annual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties, 1997-1998, Transaction Publishers, Roger Kaplan, Freedom House, Adrian Karatnycky, Transaction Publishers, 1998. Felix Onwukike , Uche, 1997, Democracy in Nigeria: Its Anthropological and Social Requirements, ed. P. Lang, University of Virginia. Soyinka, Wole, 1972, The Man Died - Prison Notes Of Wole Soyinka, London : Vintage Publishers. Kuyk, Betty M, 2003, African Voices in the African American Heritage, Indiana University Press. Read More