How foreign agents meddled in 2015 presidential election – Report

Leaked communications reveal an unsuccessful attempt to discredit President Muhammadu Buhari as a presidential candidate in the 2015 election and sway the poll in favour of former President Goodluck Jonathan.

In an undercover investigation by The Guardian, a group of Israeli contractors known as “Team Jorge” was exposed for allegedly influencing more than 30 international elections through internet hacking, sabotage, and automated disinformation campaigns on social media.

Tal Hanan, a 50-year-old former Israeli special forces agent who now works privately under the alias “Jorge”, is said to be behind the campaigns.

Leaked documents revealed that when Team Jorge worked covertly on the presidential race in 2015 alongside the British consultancy company, Cambridge Analytica.

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Jorge, or “J”, as he signed off many of his emails, was operating separately to Cambridge Analytica, while his group was coordinating with, and working alongside the British political consultancy, which shared a secret mission to help re-elect the then president, Jonathan.

The reply to Hanan’s email asking who to meet in Nigeria was sent by a young Cambridge Analytica employee, Brittany Kaiser.

Kaiser copied in the email many internal and external partners who would be coordinating with one another on the covert campaign to re-elect Jonathan and discredit his rival, Buhari, the then opposition leader.

“If you are on the ground please meet with SCL [Cambridge Analytica] Nigeria team,” she told Hanan in one of the emails.

Kaiser said that Cambridge Analytica and Team Jorge were working “separately but in parallel” in Nigeria for the same client.

However, there was no suggestion that Jonathan knew of either Cambridge Analytica or Team Jorge’s ultimately failed attempts to get him re-elected.

But the emails revealed the covert methods that were used to boost his electoral fortunes and the ways in which two teams liased with one another, with meetings in London, the Swiss resort of Davos and Abuja.

An undercover footage also recorded him (Hanan) talking about having worked extensively in Africa, and his presentations included brief references to the 2015 presidential election.

In a slideshow called “What we do” he showed a slide with the heading “Wrecking havoc during African election day”, followed by a screengrab from a newspaper article that appeared in Vanguard, which reported how, on election day, leaders in Buhari’s All Progressives Congress party (APC) discovered their phones were “rendered useless because they were bombarded with calls.”

Lai Mohammed, the Minister of Information, who was the opposition APC chief spokesperson during the 2015 election, appears to have been a target.

Muhammed’s aide recalled the incident, saying, “We were at the party’s situation room in the morning of the presidential election, only to discover that his phone line had been blocked.”

“He could neither receive nor make calls, and that was very serious because he was the live wire of the opposition,” the aide added.

During his presentation, Hanan showed the undercover reporters another slide featuring an image of women in Muslim attire who were sitting outside a polling station in Nigeria.

Suggesting that Team Jorge had secured the publication of a story about women being excluded from the polling station, Hanan told the reporters he had “created a big scandal”, adding that “They extended the election, which was our objective.”

The Nigerian presidential election, which had been due to be held on 14 February, was indeed postponed.

The six-week delay was linked to alleged security concerns over the Boko Haram insurgency.

The announcement about the delay was made by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on February 8.

One of the leaked emails between Hanan and Cambridge Analytica suggests he had advance information about that postponement.

“I have received strong indication that the elections will not take place on the 14th, and that plans are made to postpone them in few weeks,” Jorge wrote on 7 February, the day before the official announcement, saying the information came from “a top source” and adding: “Plz be carful circulating it.”

Other emails suggest Team Jorge produced YouTube video content to support Jonathan’s campaign and shared it with Cambridge Analytica, which in turn asked the Israeli outfit to help promote its videos on the platform.