The Nigerian Army has denied reports that they will be monitoring social media for hate speech and those who indulge in it.
Recall that the Vice President had earlier stated that proponents of hate speech will be seen as traitors and that the government will be on the lookout for such people.
There had been a major backlash as Nigerians opined that their right to free speech was being threatened.
But speaking on Channels’ television’s show Sunrise, the Director of Defence Information, Maj. Gen. John Enenche said that the Army will not be monitoring social media for hate speech neither do they have the power to arrest anyone who indulges in it, but that they will monitor social media as a means to gather information for their operations.
“There was nothing like that. We do not have power to arrest people for hate speeches. It is just false assertion, against the military, and against my humble self that I said that we will be arresting people or checkmating people.” he said when asked if the Army is going after proponents of hate speech.
“The military is not going to be monitoring hate speeches. Did I tell you hate speech in your recordings? We have a strategic media centre, our strategic media centre monitors the media, simple. And it is like that all over the world. And we take that because it helps us to transform the nature of the intelligence to enable us to prepare for whatever call up we get to ensure security in this country.
“Let me tell you and tell the public without fear of anybody; we are trained to do threat analysis of anything that would threaten the security of this country. So, it is part of our threat analysis. Any person can interpret it to mean that it is a follow up to the speech of the Vice-President (Yemi Osinbajo), the then Acting President and then the minister of interior; then that person can be right. Where do we take instruction from, where do we get information from? But on the whole, it is part of what is called threat analysis.”