The British political consultancy Cambridge Analytica cooperated with Israeli black ops group 'Team Jorge' to manipulate the 2015 election in Nigeria, to discredit the then opposition leader and present head of state Muhammadu Buhari, and ensure the victory of then-president Goodluck Jonathan, according to leaked emails and undercover footage cited in British media.
The media exposed the activities of 'Team Jorge' and revealed its leader – who used the alias of 'Jorge' or just 'J' – was a certain Tal Hanan, a hacker and a specialist in disinformation, who was working from an industrial park around 30 kilometers outside Tel Aviv. He was covertly filmed by three reporters while giving a presentation on using hacking methods and, according to a slide title followed by a screenshot of a news article on the 2015 polls, "Wreaking havoc during African election day."
The article that was part of Jorge's presentation covered a hack attack which blocked the phone lines of leaders in Buhari's party the All Progressives Congress (APC). The black ops specialist also described an operation that "created a big scandal", eventually leading to a six-week delay of the election.
Moreover, the media cite "dozens of emails" on coordination between Jorge and Cambridge Analytica. It is supposed that the two groups were operating "separately but in parallel" in the West African country "for the same client", although, according to the report, there is "no suggestion" that then-president Jonathan knew about the operation to support him which ultimately proved unsuccessful.
According to the cited leaks, the role of Cambridge Analytica was to ensure international media coverage for Jonathan's benefit, whereas Team Jorge's task was to provide information to undermine the opposition. The emails also suggest that there were four more entities working on the same goals as Cambridge Analytica and Jorge.
"We are working separately but must collaborate together in order to maximise our effectiveness. Our clients must see results," the leaks read.
A Jorge staffer known as "Joel" is revealed to have met with representatives of Cambridge Analytica in Switzerland, with the firm emailing him:
"We can meet in our apartment or a restaurant here to discuss what we can accomplish for Nigeria in the short term."
Hanan visited Nigeria and wrote to his British partners, asking "who is best to meet" in the country; the emails also suggest that he knew in advance about the postponement of the election.
According to Brittany Kaiser, formerly business development director of Cambridge Analytica who corresponded with Team Jorge, the latter managed to obtain footage from inside Buhari's campaign meetings as well as inside documents later leaked to the media.
She also noted that Jorge representatives visited her firm's office in London: "They came to the office for maybe an hour one day, and plugged something into a computer to show some pieces of information that they had obtained from the opposing campaign."
In 2018, Kaiser shared some data on the matter with a parliamentary committee, leading to a special inquiry on the Nigerian affair of her firm and Jorge, whose identity has been unknown until now.
Kaiser noted that she "did not know what [Jorge and Cambridge Analytica] were up to until it had already been done", but added that she did not "believe that criminality [of the operation] (with some notorious exceptions) is rampant."
Cambridge Analytica existed from 2013 to 2018 and became widely known for the Facebook*–Cambridge Analytica data scandal, referring to collecting of personal data of some 87 million social media users for political purposes. Kaiser was also featured in the documentary 'The Great Hack' about the scandal.
The consultancy firm was started as a subsidiary of SCL Group – which described itself as a "global election management agency" – by its long-time administrators Nigel Oakes, Alexander Nix and Alexander Oakes who were reported to have ties with the UK Conservative Party, the British royal family and the British military.
In November, it was reported that another British Lobbying firm with Conservative Party links, CT Group, interfered in the DR Congo elections in 2011.
*social media site that belongs to Meta, banned in Russia as an extremist organization