Tullow link to disgraced UK firm emerges

Oil company Tullow may have worked with disgraced firm Cambridge Analytica to manage perceptions about its operations and sway opinion of government officials, in what was then a volatile and divisive oil exploration in Turkana County.

A leaked proposal to Tullow by Cambridge Analytica details proposals on how the two companies could partner to make the Turkana operations a success.

Among key points in the document, titled Proposal for Research and Consultancy Services, was Cambridge Analytica's proposal to help the company closely monitor and manage government expectations.

“Tullow’s challenges are therefore to understand how best to engage positively with its host communities and keep the Kenyan government on side whilst avoiding entanglement in domestic politics, all of which must be achieved to ensure the long-term attractiveness of the projects it is developing,” reads a section of the proposal done in early 2013.

SCL Group, Cambridge Analytica’s (CA) parent company, then proposed to assist Tullow in surmounting these challenges by providing a thorough audit of the human and private sector skills and capabilities available in Kenya (andbBlock locations) that could – with varying levels of capacitation, support and supervision – become involved in Tullow’s commercial activities.

“Alongside this, we propose to provide Tullow with a highly detailed analysis of how Turkana society functions to ensure it understands how best to engage with its host communities,” the proposal reads.

“Finally, we suggest an ongoing local content action plan and associated communications plan targeting two principal audiences - Tullow’s host communities and the Kenyan government at all levels.”

SCL’s proposed to help Tullow understand how best to juggle a range of competing responsibilities, including engaging positively with the communities located around its blocks, keeping the Kenyan government ‘on side’, while avoiding being caught up in internal politics.

The local content action plan was meant to bring on board as many locals as possible to work in various sections of the oil company

Cambridge Analytica was a political data analysis firm that worked on both the 2013 and 2017 Uhuru Kenyatta election and re-election respectively. According to US publication Wired, CA’s professed advantage is having enough data points on people to build extensive personality profiles which its clients can leverage on for psychographic targeting of ads and persuasion.

CA was also largely involved in the election of American President Donald Trump as well as being credited with swaying British public opinion that resulted in Brexit - the UK’s decision to leave the European Union.

While it is not clear whether Tullow oil eventually took up the SCL offer, Tullow’s recent operations point to a similarity to the suggestions put forth in the CA proposal.

There has been considerable favourable press, with positive response from the government on matters Tullow, so much so that last year President Uhuru Kenyatta launched the first batch of crude oil export from the Turkana oil fields.