PIDOM: Did Nigeria Police Murder Missing Whistleblower?

Pidom, an anonymous Nigerian whistleblower popularly known for high-profile document leaks and exposing Nigerian government’s dodgy activities on social media, especially Twitter, has been missing in action since early August.

According to one of Pidom’s close allies, investigative journalist David Hundeyin, who brought the matter to light on Thursday, the activist was secretly arrested in Port Harcourt on August 5, by the Nigeria Police, and taken to the Force Criminal Investigation Department, Abuja.

In an article published on Hundeyin’s substack medium, a police document revealed that someone identified as Bristol Isaac M, believed to be Pidom’s real name, was granted bail on August 15, 2024, with stringent bail conditions.

He was expected to produce two sureties who own landed properties in Nigeria worth N500 million, a condition almost impossible for an average citizen and someone known to expose government’s malfeasants to meet.

According to the piece, an unidentified person, supposedly a government agent, took control of Pidom’s Twitter account and tried to manipulatively rope Hundeyin into the case.

The person, who pretended to be Pidom’s close associate, said the whistleblower wanted Hundeyin to manage his Twiiter account for him until his return and went ahead to provide the login details.

In a bid for Hundeyin to access the account with the provided login details, which were unsuccessful twice, Pidom’s supposed associate used sophisticated tech to uncover Hundeyin’s location and attempted to hack his Whatsapp.

Meanwhile, in their earlier chat, the said associate had claimed he was not tech savvy and requested Hundeyin’s Whatsapp number so he could communicate Pidom’s requests more effectively. Hundeyin didn’t release his number but the fellow tried to hack it anyway.

Read excerpts from the article:

“What if the person who is allegedly in the custody of the Nigerian state under suspicion of being PIDOM has been tortured or even murdered? What if the attempt to rope me into the narrative management surrounding his disappearance is an attempt by Nigerian intelligence to conceal their torture and/or murder of a prominent whistleblower?

Before locking him out of the account, I asked the person using PIDOM’s account for proof of the incarcerated person’s life. He claimed that he saw PIDOM last week and that he is in “high spirits.” I asked if the lawyer was aware of my prospective involvement in the issue, and if I could speak to the lawyer. He replied, “Not now.” What on earth did that even mean?

The obvious attempts to hack into my WhatsApp account show that while the person I spoke to claimed not to know my number, someone definitely did. From this I deduced that even if the person I spoke to does not work for the government, the government was almost certainly using them as a patsy while working to compromise my security behind them.

2FA login codes such as the ones I received on my UK number are only sent when a password is entered correctly. If a wrong password is entered, no 2FA code is sent out. Now bear in mind that I had just changed PIDOM NIGERIA’s Twitter login details – yet someone was able to correctly enter the new password and make multiple attempts to login.

The incredible speed of this hack is a telltale sign of a state actor’s involvement. The list of entities in Nigeria that have access to the technology, complex hardware and resources to brute-force a high-security password in less than 40 minutes is very short, and has only 3-letter agencies on it. DSS. DIA. NIA. NSA…”

As at the time of filing this report, the Nigeria Police was yet to respond to the allegations.