NIDO Is Not NIA’s Monitoring Tool – Collins Nweke, Former Europe’s NIDO Chair

A former chairman of Nigeria In Diaspora Organization (NIDO) Europe, Collins Nweke, has said the claim that the organization was established as a monitoring tool by Nigeria’s National Intelligence Agency (NIA) was false.

Naija News reports that investigative journalist, David Hundeyin, on Monday, on his X handle, claimed that the organization established during the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo serves the country’s intelligence purpose.

He added that NIDO’s WhatsApp group was populated by NIA‘s agents gathering information for the government.

“I hate to break it to you, but the entire NIDO organization was literally created by Nigerian secret intelligence. It’s not a diaspora organization at all – it’s a state-backed organization created by the NIA under Obasanjo to monitor and control the size of economic and political influence wielded by the Nigerian diaspora in Nigeria.

“Half of the people in those NIDO WhatsApp groups with you are not using their real identities – they’re trained NIA intelligence gathering agents,” he wrote.

In an interview with News Central on Wednesday, Nweke explained that as former Executive Secretary of the organization in London and former Chairman of NIDO, Europe, the claim was unfounded.

He stated that until he left office in 2014, there was no government interference in the activities of NIDO as claimed by the investigative journalist.

“I have been an executive of NIDO. I mean, I was the Chief Executive Secretary at the London headquarters and I carried on to become Board Chairman of NIDO Europe. Now, I’m careful what I say because I don’t want to be the one piece of the government of Nigeria. But I can speak to NIDO, particularly in the period that I was at the helm of affairs.

“Now, there was absolutely nothing like what Mr Hundeyin has alleged. I actually feel odd having to disclaim what he has said because as a matter of fact, it was shocking. And so I don’t know where Mr. Hundeyin got what the information that he put out there on X.

“But I can say categorically that in the time that I was at the helm of affairs, there was absolutely nothing like that, no indication of government officials making overtures to us for expenditure purposes and all of that. And I can say even categorically now, after leaving office, I left office in 2014, that I’ve been in close contact with colleagues at this moment. And I’m aware from my interactions with them that nothing like that has happened. So it is up to Hundeyin to prove the allegations that he has made,” Nweke stated.