The activities of Nigerians on the social media are now being monitored
for hate speech, anti-government and anti-security information by the
military.
Director of Defence Information, Major-General John Enenche, told Channels
Television that the move became necessary in the light of troubling
activities and misinformation capable of jeopardizing the unity of the
country.
His comments come less than 48 hours after President Muhammadu Buhari said
in his national broadcast that some of the discussion on social media in
his absence crossed the line and left him distressed.
For Major General Enenche, the social media has always been a challenge
all over the world and for the military, it is no different.
“It is a double-edged sword and we are also having a bit of it,” he said
when he appeared on Channels Television’s News At 10, hours after
President Buhari met with service chiefs and ordered them to strengthen
their operations.
“Imagine when the President came back and addressed the nation, not up to
30 minutes later, a fake speech of the Commander-In-Chief was being
circulated in order to do what? To derail the people. If you are not very
sharp and if you didn’t listen to the speech or you don’t have a copy of
it like I had it almost immediately, you wouldn’t know. So, looking at it
from that perspective, it is a challenge everywhere.”
Having observed the possibility that the social media can be misused the
military has taken steps to address that. One of such steps is the
establishment of strategic media centres.
“What are we doing? In the military, we are now taking on it more
seriously than ever. We have our strategic media centres that monitor the
social media to be able to sieve out and react to all the ones that will
be anti-government, be anti-military, (and) be anti-security,” the
military chief continued.
“We tackle them appropriately with appropriate responses. Ahead of that,
we are also proactive. We have measures in place, scientific measures to
be able to sieve this information and also to get the public and let them
know that some of this information they are getting is not genuine are not
true and their objective is an anti-corporate existence of this country.”
There has been a rise in attacks by Boko Haram terrorists and it is one of
the things the President advised the service chiefs to check. While the
military intends to do just that, Major General Enenche said what they
terrorists are doing is not surprising.
He said, “Like I have said before, it is not unexpected being that they
have been degraded, decimated and really busted at camp zero and other
cities there through the air bombardment and raids by members of the
military, particularly the army. So you will see them spreading out like
ants that have been busted from an anthill.”
According to him, the terrorists have benefitted in their attacks from the
unending collaboration by insiders and sympathisers among the residents in
the North East.
“However, I want to assure the general public and Nigerians that measures
are in place to begin to take on them and begin to take them out. However
highly placed anyone is or any insider or collaborator is, we are on top
of the situation and we are beginning to get our information to begin to
handle them appropriately,” he said.