Anonymous Nigeria on Friday hacked the Twitter account of the National Broadcasting Commission in apparent support for the ongoing #EndSARS protests.
The hackers also took over the website of Nigeria’s National Industrial Court and also targeted the official website of Edo State Government.
“We #Anonymous will continue supporting Nigerians,” the hackers said in a message posted to NBC’s handle.
Protests broke out in different cities in Nigeria to demand an end to Special Anti-Robbery Squad, accused of extrajudicial killings, kidnappings, extortion, and intimidation.
On the homepage of the court’s website, the hackers wrote the hashtag #OpNigeria #EndSARSProtest #EndSARS #EndSarsNow and #EndPoliceBrutality
In a document on Friday, details of hundreds of contracts approved by the Edo State Government were dumped on Pastebin by Anonymous on Thursday.
The document showed project ID, date of approval, the cost, and category of some of the contracts in 2019 and 2020.
The names of companies to which some of the contracts were awarded were also included in the leaked documents. The hackers alleged that some contractors were paid for doing nothing.
“You got paid for these contracts but never delivered the job, received billions but spent nothing,” Anonymous said on Twitter.
But the Edo State government has denied the allegations, in fact, it said the documents were fake.
Crusoe Osagie, Edo State governor’s spokesman said the documents on the state official websites are for public consumption but said the ones leaked by the hacktivists were “fake”.
“Our website in Edo State is not for hiding documents, it is for putting documents out there for the public. So you don’t need to hack our website to see things that were put there,” Osagie said.
“If you claim you hack our website to get documents that means whatever they are putting out there is fake because our website is not that one we hide documents in,” he added.
Although the Anonymous Wednesday night said it has hacked “multiple” Nigerian Government websites as protests against police brutality, the Edo State government is one of the first two government websites to be exposed.
It also shared a Pastebin document that seemed to contain confidential information on police personnel Wednesday.
The group created a dedicated Twitter for its Nigerian operations on October 12, telling the government to “expect us”. Another handle @AnonyNig is also active in the hacktivism.