Military says it cannot arrest people for hate speeches on social media
- DHQ spokesman Enenche says the military lacks power to arrest those making hate speeches on social media
- He said the military would only monitor social media and do a threat analysis but not arrest for hate speeches
- Enenche said the military has already created a social media monitor centre that is doing the job
The military has said it will not arrest anybody who makes hate speeches on social media because it is not empowered by law to do so.
This bit of information was made public by the director of defence information Major General John Enenche, in an interview on Channels TV on Thursday, August 31.
Enenche said the military had no plans to arrest anyone that makes anti-military or anti-government comments on social media as was widely believed.
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According to him, the military was just going to monitor happenings on the social media and nothing more.
Enenche said: “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. 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."
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He added: “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? It is part of what is called threat analysis.”
Legit.ng had earlier reported that the Nigerian military had begun monitoring social media to identify peddlers of fake news, anti-government and anti-security activities in the country.
The new development comes just days after it was disclosed by Major-General John Enenche, Director of Defence Information during an interview session on Channels Television’s News at 10 and a live broadcast delivered by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Watch this Legit.ng TV video of a Nigerian man calling for mass burial for all corrupt leaders
Source: Legit.ng
