A fake twitter handle had begun gaining momentum yesterday claiming to be “The Official Twitter Monitoring Account of the Nigerian Armed Forces. Nigeria Military” and causing many Nigerians active on Twitter to raise dust over the first tweets the handle posted.
In line with best practices, henceforth, we are monitoring all Nigeria related anti-government, anti-military conversations on Social Media.
— DefenseMonitorNG (@DefenseMonitor) August 23, 2017
The official Digital Communications Agency of the federal government however identified the Defense monitor handle as FAKE and true to its promise to shut the handle down yesterday, has had the account suspended.
We will work with @Twitter to ensure this fake handle is taken down. The genuine Defence HQ handle is @DefenceInfoNG. Thank you. https://t.co/44NPuL7nzK
— PODE (#weASOcial) (@DigiCommsNG) August 24, 2017
Speaking on a TV interview the Director of Defence Information, Major General John Enenche was quoted as saying, “We have our strategic media centres that monitor the social media to be able to sieve out and react to all the ones that will be anti-government, be anti-military, (and) be anti-security” and many interpreted it as a potential clamp down on freedom of speech and necessary criticism of government.
