Acting President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo has charged the men and women of the Nigerian Armed Forces to take their campaign against threats to Nigeria to the cyber space.
Speaking at the graduation ceremony of the senior course 39 of the Armed Forces, Command and Staff College, Jaji, Kaduna, Osinbajo said blogs, radio stations and other online platforms had given room for those who called for secession, quit notices and other threats to Nigeria’s unity to have a voice.
His words: “Another lesson is that in the 21st century the theatre of war is increasingly shifting to cyberspace. Terrorist organisations, purveyors of hate speech, all of these and many more who seek to destabilise the world are busy staking out territory on the internet, and scoring significant victories and conquests for themselves.
“As members of the Armed Forces, with a mandate to protect Nigeria from all forms of internal and external aggression, you will increasingly be judged as much on the basis of your success online as on your successes on the conventional battlefield.
“The internet has altered or disrupted every industry we know of: politics and elections, business and commerce, governance; and is changing the very nature of warfare. Websites teaching on how to make and use IEDs and other explosives are numerous.
“Today a great deal of the threats facing Nigeria are being nurtured and cultivated in the vast spaces of the internet. The rumblings of secession, the dangerous quit ultimatums to ethnic groups, the radio stations and blogs that spew divisive speech and exploit our fault lines; all of these are now to be found online.
“This means that the military and its officers and men must itself devote resources and talent to these new battlefields, where mindless verdicts on the continued unity and existence of Nigeria are daily being delivered.
“As you make your way out of the hallowed halls of this institution, into the ‘field’, as you would describe it, you have huge roles to play in the way Nigeria turns out in the years and decades ahead,” he said.