Konquest: The Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen Tukur Buratai, has inaugurated the Nigerian Army Cyber Warfare Command, a new corps to protect its data/network against cyber attack and curb terrorism.
He also launched an app that Nigerian citizens can download to pass information to the military authorities.
Buratai said the Cyber Operations Centre, at the army headquarters in Abuja, would also boost the army’s online presence in the fight against fake news targeted at it with counter narratives and cyber operations.
He added that “cyber warfare is the fifth domain of warfare after Land, Sea, Air and Space.Therefore, this project would not have come at a better time than now.”
Buratai, therefore, stressed the need for the army to embark on data protection and Information Warfare to curb online radicalisation, as well as other terrorist activities perpetrated on the internet.
"Buratai signs the guest book at the Cyber Warfare Command"
According to him, the intrinsic features of cyberspace can be easily exploited for information warfare by actors with malicious intent to plant and disseminate fake news and instruct paid users to spread online manipulated content.
“This is done to degrade debates with diverging truths, deceive, distract and misinform public opinion.
“This can eventually disorient and corroborate a sense of doubt among the public, or shape the opinion of a specific target audience on a certain issue.
“Hostile actors in cyberspace are also willing and capable of leveraging the variety of tools allowed by computer network operations and computational propaganda to influence public opinion to a degree that old-fashioned Psychology Operations could only dream of.
“The above statement accurately demonstrates the real threat of information warfare and the need to combat it with information knowledge.”
The army chief charged personnel of the new corps which he said was first in Africa, to equip themselves with digital forensics capabilities to be able to handle cases of identity theft and generate immediate incidence response.
He added that “furthermore, I encourage you to routinely survey the dark web/darknet and carry out analysis that may help the Nigerian army to be proactive in the cyber realm.”
Buratai noted that in recent times, the military had been inundated with several complaints regarding claims bothering on the unprofessional conducts of some of its personnel in the field.
Consequently, he said, the army took it upon itself to create an avenue for the public to submit complaints and information directly to the appropriate authority without third party interference.
He said “the avenue is an application that will allow users to relay information anonymously to the Nigerian Army.
“It enables citizens to give timely information to the army, thereby facilitating quick response.
“Additionally, crimes against the constitution perpetrated by serving personnel can be directly reported to the army, while keeping the person involved abreast with actions taken as regards a submitted complain.
“The link to the application will be publicly available on the Nigerian Army Facebook page, while the application can be assessed through our website and on apps freely available on various app stores.”
The chief of army staff added that users could submit a report, as well as attach uploads that would aid the authority in carrying out necessary actions.
Chain! Nigerian army is too local. Other country develop app to monitor war ship in the sea, jet fighter on air, etc. Nigerian army has to acquire an app just to monitor fake news. I salute the analogue government.
The British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC, has raised concerns over what it called the “fake news” phenomenon and the possible impacts on the 2019 general elections in Nigeria. Mr Jamie Angus, the Director of BBC World Service Group, who featured on yesterday’s edition of Channels TV programme, “Sunrise Daily," on July 1, 2018 said: desperate politicians would use the opportunity of the elections to plant and spread malicious stories. Angus noted that fake news and disinformation had constituted a huge challenge globally, particularly in Africa and Nigeria, because of people’s trust and belief in the social media.
He said fake news were being spread for economic reasons, especially on social media, where efforts were often made to attract people to pages and timeline. Angus said that more worrisome “is the spread of fake news to create and aggravate ethnic and communal clashes and tensions.” He said that there were instances when people faked the stories of BBC and other credible media organisations. “For instance, during the Kenyan elections, people put in some fake version of BBC news report and shared them on Facebook and Whatssapp for political gains. What we can do is to educate the people and appeal to them not to share news until they are sure of the source and confirm it is the truth,” he said.
^^^^^ ^^^^^ To identify dubious fake pictures of killings and dead bodies from DR Congo and Rwanda being circulated on WhatsApp and useless blogs and being passed off as pictures of dead people from Nigeria [Plateau, Kaduna, Benue, Adamawa], please use:
images.google.com and UPLOAD the image and it will tell you if it is real or NOT and which country the picture originally came from!
It is very insulting to the people of Plateau, Kaduna, Benue, Adamawa for propaganda agents to use false images from other countries for political purposes and to damage the image of the current Federal Government... it is even more insulting to Nigerians sense of judgment to manipulate them!
Remember use: images.google.com and report to the ARMY CYBER WARFARE COMMAND via the Mobile APP.
I hope this helps everyone reading this. Enough said!
Chain! Nigerian army is too local. Other country develop app to monitor war ship in the sea, jet fighter on air, etc. Nigerian army has to acquire an app just to monitor fake news. I salute the analogue government.
^^^^^ ^^^^^ :-) Don't give up on Nigeria and the brilliant guys in the NA, Airforce, and the Navy!
And half-baked, semi-literate bloggers and the gullible Nigerian social media users are active agents of fake news dissemination
^^^^^ ^^^^^ @Ishilove
Thanks for sharing my original post on this thread and giving it a boost! :-)
I know you were instrumental in getting the thread on the Front Page on the 23 of October, as an "Emeritus Super Mod!"
This is my first post ever to hit the Front Page since I started using NL in 2005!
I hope the users of NL and beyond will make good use of the Army iReport App to report Fake News, Hate Speech, and any dangerous signals being spread on WhatsApp and non-credible blogs... and foolish politicians!
We cannot afford to have Nigerians becoming refugees in neighboring West African countries with the attendant insults that come with it like that being experienced by the English-speaking Cameroonians are facing in Cross River State right now.
Thanks again Ishilove... and have fun over the weekend!
Thanks for sharing my original post on this thread and giving it a boost! :-)
I know you were instrumental in getting the thread on the Front Page on the 23 of October, as an "Emeritus Super Mod!"
This is my first post ever to hit the Front Page since I started using NL in 2005!
I hope the users of NL and beyond will make good use of the Army iReport App to report Fake News, Hate Speech, and any dangerous signals being spread on WhatsApp and non-credible blogs... and foolish politicians!
We cannot afford to have Nigerians becoming refugees in neighboring West African countries with the attendant insults that come with it like that being experienced by the English-speaking Cameroonians are facing in Cross River State right now.
Thanks again Ishilove... and have fun over the weekend!
I hope it is not an attempt at crippling freedom of speech.
From Buhari Media Crew to Buhari Cyber Military crew
Kole work o
^^^^^^ ^^^^^^
It is not an attempt to crippled freedom of speech. It is to protect Nigerians and investments from harm and Hate Speech. Nigerians cannot afford to become refugees in West African countries with the insults that come with being refugees!
It is not an attempt to crippled freedom of speech. It is to protect Nigerians and investments from harm and Hate Speech. Nigerians cannot afford to become refugees in West African countries with the insults that come with being refugees!
All the best!
You sound like a joke, unless I didn't get you.
Do we need a special body to defend us on social media with the fire tongued baddest trolling & savagery talent of millions of Nigerians on the internet?
Big props to the Nigerian Army for professionally discovering the body of Gen. Alkali who was killed by the cowards in Jos South.
The Army's insistence on draining that abandoned pond of water which that community lied is an ancestral worship pond - shows that the Nigerian Army truly has advanced intelligence to deal with any crime.
