Amid the reactions trailing the indefinite suspension of Twitter’s operation in Nigeria, the federal government has reportedly earmarked 4.8 billion naira to monitor an encrypted messaging application, WhatsApp and a satellite telephone, Thuraya.
TheCable reported that the Nigerian government allegedly budgeted the sum of money for the National Intelligence Agency in the supplementary 2021 budget passed by the Senate.
EveryEvery.ng gathered that the National Assembly approved N982 billion as the supplementary budget for 2021. The Upper Chamber approved N123 billion for recurrent expenditure and N895 billion for capital expenditure in the budget.
The budget breakdown indicates that it is meant to facilitate the procurement of the COVID-19 vaccine and boost military operations. The police commands and formation got N33.6 billion for some projects, including the fumigation of 19 training institutes at N200 million.
FG To Monitor WhatsApp
While N936 million was allocated to purchase uniforms and kits for police officers, The Nigerian Army got N675 million, N1.6 billion was set aside for additional 2,700 troops under the ministry of defence.
Other allocations include N239 billion for the Nigeria Air Force, the Department of State Services got a total of N17.5 billion, the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) got N1.6 billion for a “treatment programme.
The Senate voted N20.6 billion for the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines and N60.7 billion to purchase the vaccines.
