Military Now Monitoring Activities Of Nigerians On Social Media

The military said on Tuesday that it has begun monitoring Nigerians on social media for hate speech, anti-government and anti-security information.

Speaking in a televised interview on Channels TV, Director of Defence Information, Major-General John Enenche, said the move was necessary owing to recent utterances made by some sections in the country, which he said could jeorpadize the unity of the nation.

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 “have crossed our national red lines”.

“This is a step too far,” the president said.

According to Major General Enenche, social media has always been a challenge all over the world, especially for the military.

“It is a double-edged sword and we are also having a bit of it,” Enenche 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.”

He further assured the general public that the military have put measures in place to tackle the recent resurgence in the activities of Boko Haram insurgents.

The Army spokeman believes that the terrorists are benefitting in their attacks from insiders and 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.