The Nigeria Army has decried the increasing influence the social media is giving banditry in the country.
It said social media platforms provide the oxygen for criminals, like bandits, to breathe and increase their attacks.
The Army Chief of Civil Military Affairs, Maj.-Gen. Nosakhire Ugbo, spoke during the Nigerian Army’s social media seminar, tagged: Harnessing the Social Media for National Security and Development, yesterday in Katsina.
The Army chief said the seminar was meant to promote interactions between the social media platforms and the army.
He stressed that the Nigerian Army needed the cooperation of social media platforms to be on the same media page with the people.
Ugbo said: “The general idea is to dominate the social media space, to ensure they unite and engage freely with the army. This is because it’s a critical battle for arts and the minds to engage together to fight banditry.
“The social media operators must, in their words, actions or inactions, resonate at far and near and shape our national security rather than potentially undermine our collective resolve for a united and peaceful nation.
“You must strengthen the bond between the Nigerian Army, the communities and the nation together.”
The special guest of honour and Commander of the Nigeria Army Training Centre, Maj.-Gen. Lookman Omoniyi, described the seminar as a formidable avenue for cross-fertilising of ideas.
Also, five persons, comprising two soldiers and three civilians, were injured and three others abducted when bandits attacked Magamar Jibia border town in Jibia Local Government Area of Katsina State on Wednesday night.
A member of the Jibia security committee, who spoke in confidence, told The Nation yesterday in a telephone chat that the bandits overpowered the security personnel who were deployed to repel them.
