As Italy expels Chinese spies for surveilling dissidents, evidence points to an unreported network already embedded across Nigeria. KEHINDE ADEGOKE REPORTS.
When Italian authorities this month ordered the expulsion of eight Chinese nationals for spying on political dissidents on behalf of the Chinese government, the story made headlines across Europe. In Nigeria, it barely registered.
It should have.
Because while Italy was acting against Beijing’s transnational surveillance machine, Nigeria was quietly sitting at the top of a deeply troubling list — identified in a landmark March 2026 report as Africa’s single largest buyer of Chinese surveillance technology, having spent more than $470 million on AI-powered cameras, facial recognition systems, and number plate recognition infrastructure supplied and financed almost entirely by Chinese firms and Chinese state banks.
The two facts — Italy’s expulsions and Nigeria’s surveillance spending — are not unrelated. Together, they tell a story that no Nigerian institution appears willing to tell publicly.
TheDiggerNews.com is telling it.
THE SECRET STATION IN BENIN CITY
In October 2022, a bombshell investigative report by Safeguard Defenders — the same human rights organisation whose research triggered Italy’s expulsion orders — revealed that China had established a covert overseas police “Service Station” in Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria.
The station, described as a Fuzhou-run overseas police “Service Station,” is one of more than 54 such outposts established by Chinese authorities across 30 countries worldwide, including 35 service stations in 16 European countries, 10 in six American countries, and five in five Asian countries.
The Nigerian Police Force spokesperson did not respond to calls or messages at the time, while the Edo State Police Public Relations Officer said he was unaware of the development.
The Edo State Police Command went further — denying the reports and accusing the reporting journalist of “misleading the public,” adding that “Nigeria is a sovereign nation established by law and no other nation can establish a base of any form without due process.”
The Chinese Embassy in Abuja was equally dismissive. “There is no such station in Nigeria or anywhere,” said Chinese Embassy Press Officer Zhang Hang, arguing that diplomatic relations cannot allow any country to open police posts in another sovereign country outside its territories.
Both denials were issued in 2022. Neither has been followed by any documented investigation, prosecution, or public inquiry by Nigerian authorities.
The station in Benin City has never been formally confirmed — or formally ruled out — by any Nigerian government body since.
It is now 2026. The question has never been answered. Is the station still there?
$470 MILLION — AND NOBODY ASKED WHO CONTROLS THE DATA
While the Benin City station debate raged and faded, a far larger and more consequential development was unfolding in plain sight.
At the centre of Nigeria’s surveillance investment is the National Public Security Communication System — a $470 million project jointly financed by the Nigerian government and a loan from the China Eximbank. The federal government contributed 15 per cent of the funding, while the remaining 85 per cent — approximately $399 million — was secured through external borrowing. The project was contracted to Chinese firms, including ZTE Corporation and Hikvision.
According to a March 2026 report by the Institute of Development Studies entitled “Smart City Surveillance in Africa: Mapping Chinese AI Surveillance Across 11 Countries,” Nigeria has emerged as the largest investor in AI-powered surveillance technologies in Africa, accounting for over $470 million of the estimated $2.1 billion spent across the continent.
The scale of Nigeria’s camera network dwarfs that of any other African nation. Across all 11 countries studied, at least 35,000 smart cameras have been deployed, with Nigeria alone accounting for approximately 10,000 more cameras than any other nation in the group.
And the real total is almost certainly higher. Researchers noted that “surveillance spending is often secret; no figures were available for two of the 11 countries studied; the public accounts for the other nine countries were incomplete; and this study included only 11 of Africa’s 55 countries.”
THE QUESTION NIGERIA MUST ANSWER
Here is the question at the heart of this investigation — the one that every Nigerian citizen, journalist, activist, and lawmaker should be demanding an answer to:
The cameras were built by Chinese companies. The loan came from a Chinese state bank. The technology is operated by Chinese firms. Where does the data go?
A typical Chinese safe city surveillance package involves a loan from the China Eximbank tied to the purchase of surveillance cameras from Hikvision and a command and control centre built and serviced by Huawei or ZTE.
In plain terms: China finances the deal, builds the infrastructure, installs the software, and services the system. At what point does Nigeria control its own surveillance data — and at what point does Beijing?
Experts have expressed concerns about the unbridled use of such tools, which can lead to crackdowns on dissenters like activists and journalists. Facial recognition has reportedly been used to monitor activists in Uganda as well as the Gen Z-led protests in Kenya.
Dr Tony Roberts, independent digital rights researcher and co-author of the IDS report, warned that “the rapid growth of smart city surveillance in Africa is occurring without adequate legal regulation or oversight. Unregulated surveillance creates a chilling effect that inhibits the right to peaceful protest and reduces the freedom to speak truth to power and hold governments to account.”
THE ITALY CONNECTION — AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR NIGERIA
The Italian expulsions are not a distant European story. They are a mirror held up to Nigeria’s own vulnerability.
Italy expelled eight Chinese nationals for doing precisely what the Benin City “Service Station” was accused of enabling — locating, monitoring, intimidating, and harassing Chinese dissidents living on foreign soil. The Italian case was triggered by a hack of a police database containing information on 5,000 officers and the investigative files of the Chinese dissidents they were protecting.
Nigeria has 10,000 Chinese-supplied smart cameras connected to a command-and-control centre built and serviced by Chinese firms. Nigeria has a reported Chinese “Service Station” in Benin City whose existence has never been formally investigated. Nigeria has no equivalent of Italy’s counter-terrorism police unit for monitoring transnational repression.
And Nigeria has spent $470 million — 85 per cent of it borrowed from China — on the infrastructure that makes all of the above possible.
THE SILENCE OF NIGERIA’S INSTITUTIONS
TheDiggerNews.com has identified the following questions that require urgent public answers from Nigeria’s relevant institutions:
To the Department of State Services (DSS): Is Nigeria aware of Chinese transnational repression operations on its soil? Has any investigation into the Benin City Service Station ever been conducted? What were its findings?
To the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA): Who controls the data collected by Nigeria’s $470 million Chinese-supplied surveillance network? Is any of that data accessible to Chinese government entities?
To the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Has Nigeria raised the issue of Chinese transnational repression with the Chinese Embassy in Abuja? Does Nigeria have a formal policy position on the matter?
To the Nigerian Police Force: Has the National Public Security Communication System — built by ZTE and Hikvision — ever been audited for data security? Has any Nigerian agency verified that surveillance data collected on Nigerian citizens is not accessible to Chinese state actors?
These are not rhetorical questions. They are the minimum standard of accountability that any sovereign nation owes its citizens.
EDITORIAL POSITION
This is not an anti-China story. China is Nigeria’s largest trading partner, a significant infrastructure financier, and a bilateral relationship of genuine economic importance. That relationship deserves honest scrutiny — precisely because it matters.
What Italy has demonstrated this month is that acknowledging Beijing’s transnational surveillance machine and acting against it is not incompatible with maintaining diplomatic and economic ties with China. Italy expelled eight Chinese spies. Italy remains a trading partner of China.
Nigeria can ask hard questions. Nigeria can demand accountability. Nigeria can audit its own surveillance infrastructure and investigate its own sovereign territory.
What Nigeria cannot afford to do — in an era where Chinese agents are being expelled from European democracies for hacking police databases and harassing dissidents — is remain silent.
The cameras are watching. The question is: for whom?
TheDiggerNews.com is seeking an audience with the DSS, NITDA, the Nigerian Police Force, and the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Responses will be published in full upon receipt. This investigation is ongoing.