The Federal Government on Tuesday said that the military and various security agencies in the country are collaborating with major social media organisations to identify and erase accounts used by terrorist and criminal groups to promote their activities and raise funds for their nefarious activities.
Coordinator of the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) Major General Adamu Laka, who made this known, said that security agencies have held several engagements with social media companies to address posts and accounts that pose threats to national security.
Gen. Laka also said that social media platforms like TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and X had been used by terrorists to publicise operations, display looted items, and communicate with supporters.
At a media briefing on activities of NCTC in 2025, Gen. Laka said:
“These platforms are businesses and are interested in growing their user base, but we engage them and explain the implications of certain posts on national security, and we take them down.”
While noting that terrorist tactics continue to evolve, including the use of aliases and unverified accounts, adding that security agencies constantly adapt to counter such developments, he said ransom payments remain a major source of terror financing, with Point of Sale (POS) operators increasingly exploited to move funds for the criminals.
According to him, in several cases, ransom payments are transferred to accounts belonging to POS operators, who then release the cash to kidnappers, thereby making tracking more difficult for the security agencies.
“You see a transfer made by terrorists, and when you investigate the account, it belongs to a POS operator. The kidnappers give out the POS operator’s number, the money is transferred, and they go to collect it,” he said.
To curb the menace, he said security agencies had intensified efforts to track ransom payments, arrest those involved, and disrupt terror financing networks, but stressed that operational details could not be made public for security reasons.
Laka, who said that several arrests and prosecutions had been made in connection with ransom payments and terrorism financing, adding that asset recoveries and seizures formed part of Nigeria’s compliance with international anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing standards, noted that the country’s recent progress in meeting the requirements of the Financial Action Task Force was partly due to coordinated investigations by a joint committee involving security agencies, financial intelligence units, and the judiciary.
Laka, who listed the porous borders in the Sahel region as some of the challenges posed by evolving terror tactics, assured Nigerians that security agencies would continue to strengthen both physical and digital counter-terrorism efforts in the new year.
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