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Social Media and State-Of-The-Art Technology:Viable Tools to Combat

Insecurity andTerrorism

By

Don Okereke(Security Analyst & Consultant)

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Social Media and State-Of-The-Art Technology: Viable Tools to CombatInsecurity and Terrorism

ByDon Okereke

Social Media are internet or Phone based applications that enable people to

communicate, share resources and information in real time. Social Media, Open Source

Analysis/Softwares and Crowd Sourcing (obtaining needed services, ideas, o

information by soliciting contributors from a large group of people especially from an

online community rather than traditional sources) have immensely revolutionized the

way information and knowledge are generated and disseminated.

Social media is like a two-edged sword: it can be a threat to National Security and also

has the propensity to tone up National Security if well reined in. Facebook and Twitte

are inadvertently effective tools for organizing protests. Both played major roles during

the Arab Spring.

There is no gainsaying the huge potentials and impact of Social Media and State-of-the

art technology in the fight against Insecurity, Terrorism and other social vices.

According to Internet World Statistics about 45.04 million people use the internet in

Nigeria. This places Nigeria on the 11 th position in the world after France. With a

population of about 170 million people, Nigerias Internet penetration ratio is put a

26.5%. Currently there are about 5,288,960 FaceBook monthly Active Users in Nigeria

(MAU). 69% of American adults use Social Media.

Social Media Platforms- Facebook, Twitter, Hi5 etc can be a great feedbac

mechanism allowing members of the public to interface with the security agencies

Through these less formal channels, the citizenry can air their views, make enquiries

and offer useful information and suggestions while remaining anonymous if they so wish

Social Media can be used to sniff out signs of hostility by collecting, collating and

analyzing information or messages in other to prognosticate certain scenarios. Fo

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instance programs such as Open Source Indicators (OSI) or Open Sourc

Intelligence (OSINT) data sources extracts andanalyzes data from Social Media with

the goal of monitoring and forecasting when National Security related events such as

political crises, protests; emergencies etc are likely to occur. On the other hand, Dee

Packet Inspection (DPI) technology allows Internet Service Providers, to manag

network traffic and suppress unwanted connections. Civil right groups have an axe to

grind with the aforementioned technologies because, they contend, it is doable fo

censors to identify single users and to look into every single Internet Protocol packet and

subject it to special treatment based on content (censored or banned words) or type

(email, VoIP or BitTorrent Protocol).

Social Media can also be deployed to strengthen a countrys geopolitical position and its

international credibility and to counter an adversarys propaganda. Hence Social Mediacan be a good Defence and Intelligence monitoring and predicting tool.

The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is understood to have an

automated system that constantly monitors any publicly entered information for a list o

about 500-750 keywords that deal with National Security. The Central Intelligenc

Agency (CIA) is believed to use Social Media to gauge how people feel by analyzing

millions of Tweets, blog posts and Facebook updates from around the world. They sawthe uprising in Egypt coming. Twitter also helped the CIA to give White House a

snapshot of global public impression after Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan.

The Canadian Mounted Police Deputy Chief Constable-Gordon Scobbie encourage

Police formations across Canada to use Social Media both for community outreach and

operations. According to him, through Social Media, citizens can find out who thei

community constables are, how to contact them and what the local priorities are.

In the United Kingdom, the MI5 and Government Communications Headquarter

(GCHQ) used Social Media to trawl for riot organizers and mobilizers during the

widespread riots that engulfed London, Birmingham, Manchester and other locations.

was reported that BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) played a major role in spreadin

information about the riots because it allows users to send a message free of charge to

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a network of contacts connected by BBM Pins. It is believed that GCHQ computers

and listening devices can pick up audio messages and BBM communications, identify

where they have been sent from and their final destination.

Officers of the London Metropolitan Police Computer Unit are known to trawl popula

internet chat rooms sniffing out child sex offenders, pedophiles, criminals and terrorists.

It appears Nigeria is striving not to be left out in the grand scheme of things. Nigerian

authorities seem to have upped the ante with the recent $40 million internet monitoring

and surveillance contract allegedly awarded to an Israeli firm. There has been a lot o

hullabaloo in Nigeria over this development. Some time ago researchers at the Mun

School for Global Affairs at the University of Toronto alerted the world that Nigeria

Egypt, and Kenya were deploying Internet surveillance and censorship technology.

Social media is the in-thing now. To underscore the growing importance and recognitio

of Social Media in our everyday life, the United States Securities and Exchange

Commission (SEC) recently gave Companies the go-ahead to use Social Media fo

official announcements.

If properly harnessed and deployed, Social Media has tremendous potentials in terms o

Intelligence gathering and keeping abreast of goings-on in the society.

Bring to mind that many of the insurgency, terrorist cells and criminal organizations are

Internet savvy and have online presence- they issue online Press Releases via websites

such as YouTube amongst others. Through their online presence, they cannot avoid no

leaving online forensic fingerprint trails no matter how meticulous and IT savvy they

are. The Internet Protocol (I.P) address of an online interaction or transaction can go a

long way in approximating the geographical location of the Server where the message

originated from.

Undoubtedly there are inherent dangers associated with Social Media or Socia

Networking Platforms. Unwittingly liking a terrorist organization, an individua

classified as a terrorist or a radicalized school of thought may be a subtle invitation to

the prying eyes of Security/Intelligence Agencies. Recall the brutal murder of Miss

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Cynthia Osukogu sometime last year by supposed friends she hooked up with through

one of the social networking platforms. Yes that is one of the negative spin-offs of socia

networking platforms. The gist is that her assailants were also nabbed using the same

social networking technique. From what I gathered regarding this incident, her assailants

sold her BlackBerry mobile phone to someone after they must have mangled her. He

BB Pin number was subsequently used to re-establish contact with the bloke that bough

the phone and he then led investigators to the geezers that sold the Blackberry phone to

him. Brilliant investigation. Beware buying all these second-hand phones especially the

BBs that have unique pin numbers. Like they say in Nigerian parlance: I no follow na

ten thousand naira. I am sure you know what that means? Before you know it, yo

have been paraded on National television as a Suspect or an accessory before or afte

the fact just because you bought a used phone. The damage on your image o

credibility will be difficult to erase even if you manage to exonerate yourself or wriggle

out of it. Moving on.

Just recently, the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) reportedl

issued a warning of an impending resumption of hostilities in the Oil-rich Niger Delta

sequel to the jailing of their supposed leader-Henry Okah by a South African court

MEND believes the Nigerian government connived with their South African counterpar

to put Henry Okah behind bars.

Rather than Nigerias Security Agencies been proactive and take the threat seriously

they promptly waved it aside. Sometime on 6th April 2013, about thirteen Police officer

were hacked to death aftermath of an ambush which MEND claimed responsibility for

The Nigeria Police disputes MENDs claims. Whether it was MEND or not, life has been

snuffed out of 13 Police officers. This would have been avoidable if due diligence was

taken to vigorously analyze the veracity of the Press Release that supposedly emanated

from MEND. The security agencies would have ascertained if the latest message was

consistent with previous messages that emanated from the group? Did it originate from

the ab initio email address that the group were/are known with? Where was the Serve

of that message domiciled? These are some of the questions that would have been

addressed before dismissing the threat. Our bane in this part of the world is that by acts

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of commission or omission, we have a propensity to be reactive than proactive. You

dont bring out kegs to fetch water after the rainfall must have stopped.

As is the case in many advanced countries, it will be a welcome idea if the person o

office of Nigerias National Security Adviser (NSA), the State Security Service (SSS), the

National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) amongst others have dedicated and

functional Facebook, Twitter, Skype accounts through which members of the public can

interface directly with them and proffer solutions.

How can an ordinary Nigerian citizen privy to some sensitive or classified information

circumvent protocol and get the nugget of information to the leadership of these

organizations when the Oga at the top is completely detached and disconnected

from members of the public. This is where Social Media comes in; it dissolve

unnecessary red tape.

On this note, I want to commend the current I.G of Police- Mr. M.D Abubakar for doing

something unprecedented in the annals of law enforcement in the Nigerian terrain by

making his personal phone number public through which Nigerians can reach him

directly devoid of the unnecessary bureaucracy and bottlenecks.

Western Security Agencies- the FBI, CIA, MI5, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police

etc no doubt have a better grasp of Social Media and the internet generally than thei

Nigerian counterparts. I stand corrected, I am not aware of the Nigerian State Security

Service (SSS) having a website for instance. Perhaps they dont need it, they are bette

off been heard through their spokeswoman than seen innit?

The need for State-of-the-art Technological Gadgets

Nigerians always moan about the unprecedented Security challenges bedeviling Nigeria

Yes, we have a right to but we must not blame everyone else except ourselves for the

decadence. With staff strength of about 370,000 rank and file, there is no doubt that the

Nigeria Police is over-stretched and overwhelmed by the daunting security challenges

In a country of about 160 million people, this grossly falls short of the United Nations

recommended Police to people ratio of 1:450. Hence rather than passing the buck, it is

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high time we took responsibility, become more security conscious and where possible

invest a little in personal security gadgets. Fortunately there is a proliferation of Security

Gadgets like bug detectors, smoke detectors/fire alarms, portable battery-operated

CCTV Cameras, Metal/bomb detectors, GSM/GPS Car trackers, wireless video doo

phones, wireless pen video/voice recorders, fingerprint/biometric door locks, peppe

sprays etc are cheapo.

Thanks to the increasing penetration of technology, most of the sophisticated

miniaturized surveillance gadgets we see in James Bond movies are now commonplac

and are no longer the exclusive preserve of rich individuals or mainstream governmen

security establishments.

Cases abound in Nigeria of prominent individuals being assassinated with no iota of clue

as to the perpetrators. An affordable Pen Video Camera on the breast pocket of the

victim could have recorded what transpired. A battery-operated portable Table Cloc

CCTV camera in a house, office, shop or an apartment has the capacity to record

goings-on in that vicinity for upwards of 24 hours. A pepper spray has the potency to

temporarily immobilize a potential kidnapper, rapist or even an armed robber. A good

smoke detector/alarm can cost as low as six thousand naira and this can save

properties worth millions of naira.

On a National level, investment in novel technologies will do a far better job than relying

on incompetent manpower. For example, Satellite technology and Internet Protocol (I.P

Networked CCTV Cameras has a better prospect in monitoring or protecting our O

pipelines/installations and strategic national infrastructures rather awarding multi-billion

naira contracts to a battalion of unconventional and incompetent OPC, Egbesu Boys o

ex-Niger Delta militants. The persistent pipeline vandalization and oil bunkering (Nigeriareportedly looses 150,000 barrels of crude oil daily to oil theft) shows that these

vigilantes are inept at doing what they claim they know how to do best.

Security is definitely a money spinning and sapping industry in Nigeria. In 2013, out o

the N4.9 trillion Federal budgets, the Nigeria Police got N319.65bn while N348.91b

accrued to Defence. In addition to this, each of the 36 State governors is entitled to

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N6bn as Security Vote which they dont owe anybody any explanations as to what o

how they expend the largesse.

The deteriorating security situation in the country lends credence to the fact that the

monies allocated to security may not have been judiciously used after all. Simply put, the

money does not trickle down.

Investment in state-of-the-art gadgets like Automatic Number Plate Recognitio

Systems, an encompassing National Crime database and Fingerprint of convicted ex

felons, functional National Forensic Science laboratory, unattended land/ground sensor

for border control etc will go a long way in forestalling wanton insecurity in Nigeria.

To buttress the relevance of the foregoing especially the essence of an efficient borde

control measure; there was this hullabaloo recently of some foreign terrorists supposedl

from Niger Republic been arrested in Lagos. News had it that those guys were promptly

deported to Niger Republic. Is that the solution to the problem? Punch Newspaper o

February 6, 2013 opines that, immigration uncovers 1,487 illegal entry routes to

Nigeria. I think this is a conservative estimate. With the ubiquitous illegal entry points to

Nigeria, I can guarantee that those deported geezers have slipped back to Nigeria

through the Illela-Sokoto border. If Nigeria really means business in fighting insecurity

and terrorism, then we must massively curtail illegal migration by ensuring that ou

massive land, sea and maritime borders are well patrolled and protected.

Conclusion:

National Security Agencies, experts and think tanks must adapt quickly to emerging

technologies such as the Social Media and utilize this tool efficiently to combat Insecurit

and terrorism. In other not to be left out in the grand scheme of things, Nigerian Securit

Agencies must pay greater attention to Social Media and embrace the use of state-of

the-art technologies.

It is not enough to win the war. Serious effort must be geared towards winning the peace

as well. It is very important that the Security Agencies carries the citizenry along in thei

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activities and campaigns. Our approach to security must transcend a pugnacious fire

brigade mentality.

It is not adequate to have accounts with these social networking platforms or a website

those accounts must be functional and the websites must be regularly updated. The rate

of Service delivery in Nigeria especially for public institutions is to say the least, very

poor. The authorities must also ensure that they effectively respond to the questions o

comments of members of the public on their Social Media Platforms or websites.

Using the efforts and capabilities of the aforementioned foreign Security Agencies as a

benchmark or yardstick, can we say in all honesty that we are doing enough in our so

called fight against Insecurity and Terrorism in Nigeria?

Security is a collective responsibility. All hands must be on deck. No individual or country

will make meaningful progress in an atmosphere of unpredictability, insecurity an

instability. Lets make Nigeria great again! I enjoin all Nigerians to Unite Agains

Insecurity and Terrorism. See it, hear it, say it, stop it!!!

Don Okereke

(Security Analyst & Consultant)Abuja, NigeriaEmail: [email protected]: +2347080008285

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mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]

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Social Media and Technology_viable Tools_to_combat_insecurity