Report has confirmed what many Nigerians have long suspected to be true: that the federal government is spying on its citizens through the social media and email accounts.

The report titled, "The Growing Trend of African Government’s Requests for User Information and Content Removal from Internet and Telecoms Companies," was released last month by the Collaboration on International ICT Policy in East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) established under the Catalysing Access to Information and Communications Technologies in Africa (CATIA) initiatives funded by the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID).

The organization analyzed transparency reports released by telecommunications and social media companies.

The reports by these companies including Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Twitter and others showed that there has been a surge in African governments’ requests for user information.

According to the report, African governments’ requests are for subscribers’ data, content preservation, and content removal.

Facebook listed Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt and Sudan as the African countries that made the highest requests.

The social media giant said that the government of Nigeria had specified the highest number of user information on its user information requests with 113 accounts.

South Africa made 32 requests for user accounts, Egypt (31) and Sudan (24).

Facebook said that Nigeria also made requests for content in six user accounts to be preserved.

Thisday