The battle for Nigeria’s security is no longer being fought only with bullets, tanks, and troops on the ground; it is increasingly being waged inside the information space, where a single manipulated image, a false headline, or a convincing fake video can inflame tensions, undermine public confidence, and unravel months of painstaking peace-building work. This was the sobering message at the Second National Symposium on Crisis Communication, organized by the Centre for Crisis Communication (CCC) in Kaduna State, where federal and state officials, military leaders, and communication experts gathered under the theme “Inter-agency Collaboration, Public Trust and Cyber Threat Management in Crisis Communication.” The meeting brought together a rare coalition of voices—governors, generals, information commissioners, and media professionals—all of whom agreed that Nigeria’s security institutions must adapt to a rapidly changing digital reality. Gone are the days when rumor could be contained within a village square; now, false narratives travel at lightning speed across social media, reaching millions of people who may never meet a soldier or a journalist but who form opinions, make decisions, and cast votes based on what they see on their screens. The stakeholders warned that fake news, disinformation, deepfakes, and cyber threats have become serious national security challenges, capable of destabilizing communities and eroding trust in the institutions that are meant to protect the public. The symposium was not just another bureaucratic gathering; it was a recognition that Nigeria’s security agencies, which have traditionally focused on kinetic operations, must now think like communicators, diplomats, and digital detectives, because the enemy is no longer only the insurgent in the forest but also the troll in the chat room, the rumor-spreader in the market, and the foreign or domestic actor who manufactures chaos through carefully crafted lies.
Governor Uba Sani of Kaduna State, represented by his Commissioner for Information and Culture, Malam Ahmed Maiyaki, opened the symposium with a clear and urgent message: collaboration among security agencies is not a luxury but a necessity. The governor stressed that no single institution—no matter how powerful—can confront the emerging threats facing Nigeria without sharing intelligence, coordinating responses, and communicating with the public in a unified voice. He said that effective coordination and information sharing are essential for identifying early warning signs and managing tensions before they spiral into full-blown crises. This is not abstract theory; in Kaduna State, the governor explained, a collaborative approach has already been used to manage security challenges in eight local government areas that were identified as particularly volatile. By bringing together security operatives, community leaders, traditional rulers, religious figures, and ordinary citizens, his administration has sought to address grievances early, intervene before conflicts escalate, and create channels for dialogue that do not depend on military force alone. Sani emphasized that insecurity cannot be defeated through a kinetic approach alone, no matter how many soldiers are deployed or operations are launched; lasting peace requires investment in dialogue, intelligence sharing, effective communication, and community engagement. He also appealed to political leaders to embrace responsible public communication, noting that the careless words of a politician can inflame ethnic divisions, undermine electoral confidence, and create conditions for violence. The governor’s message was deeply human, rooted in the understanding that behind every security statistic is a family, a village, a schoolchild, a farmer—people whose daily lives are shaped by the tone of public discourse and the quality of government communication. By urging the Centre for Crisis Communication to hold similar engagements for political actors, he acknowledged that the very people who often need to learn discipline in communication are sometimes the ones who are most reckless with their words.
The Chief of Defence Staff, General Olufemi Olatubosun Oluyede, represented by Brigadier-General Murtala Muhammed Abu, delivered an equally powerful address that cut to the heart of why public trust matters so deeply in crisis communication. His words were blunt: in a crisis, trust is not merely a nice thing to have; it is the currency that determines whether the public believes what the government says, cooperates with instructions, and remains calm in the face of danger. He argued that operational collaboration among security agencies is incomplete without communication collaboration—agencies can share troops and logistics, but if they are not sharing verified information, aligning their narratives, and presenting a coherent position to the public, their efforts will be undermined. He stressed that well-crafted messages will fail if the public does not trust the messenger, because trust is built not through slick public relations but through honesty, consistency, and results. This is a profound challenge for the military, which has sometimes been accused of giving vague or contradictory statements during crises, leaving citizens confused and vulnerable to falsehoods. General Oluyede’s representative assured Nigerians that the military remains committed to providing credible information—not concealing the challenges the country faces, but also not amplifying fear unnecessarily. He acknowledged the growing threat of artificial intelligence-generated deepfakes, which can create convincing but completely false videos, audio recordings, and images of military operations that never actually happened. Such technology is a terrifying new weapon in the information war, because it can make a fabricated atrocity look like documented fact and turn public opinion overnight. To counter this, the military recognizes the need to strengthen digital forensics, build rapid fact-checking capacity, adopt AI-enabled detection tools, and work closely with media organizations and technology platforms to remove harmful content before it spreads. The general’s remarks were a reminder that public confidence is fragile and precious; once lost, it is extremely difficult to rebuild, and in a world where disinformation campaigns are becoming more sophisticated, every official statement must be treated as a test of institutional credibility.
Major General K. A. Ibrahim (retired), Senior Special Adviser in the Office of the Minister of Defence, who represented the Minister of Defence, General Christopher Musa (retired), broadened the discussion by framing Nigeria’s security situation in all its complexity. He observed that the country is simultaneously fighting different battles in different regions: insurgency in the Northeast, kidnapping and banditry in the Northwest, secessionist agitations and criminal activities in other parts of the country. There is no single enemy, no easily identifiable front line, and no purely military solution that could address all these threats at once. This reality demands a whole-of-society approach, in which government agencies, security forces, civil society, traditional institutions, religious bodies, the media, and ordinary citizens all play a role. Ibrahim stressed that studies and experience have shown that no single agency—whether military, police, intelligence, or civilian—can tackle the security challenges of today alone, and yet strategic communication is often the weakest link. He called for a coordinated effort to move beyond territorial rivalries and institutional silos, acknowledging that even with the best equipment and training, security agencies will fail if they cannot communicate effectively with the public they serve. His words were especially poignant because they spoke to the human consequences of insecurity: the displaced families, the kidnapped schoolchildren, the farmers who cannot return to their fields, the parents who live in constant fear for their children. For these people, effective crisis communication is not a luxury; it can mean the difference between life and death, between receiving help and being forgotten, between trusting the state and turning to alternative, sometimes dangerous, forms of protection. The retired general’s call for better strategic communication was a call for the state to behave like a living, caring institution rather than a distant, unresponsive machinery, and his insistence that security is a shared responsibility challenged everyone in the room to move beyond criticism and toward constructive participation.
The Chairman of the Centre for Crisis Communication, Major General Chris Olukolade (retired), brought the discussions into sharp focus by warning that delayed or contradictory official statements create a vacuum that rumors, misinformation, and manipulation will inevitably fill. Speaking at the symposium, he described communication as a critical component of security management, not an afterthought to be handled after operations have concluded. Olukolade pointed to the alarming scale of Nigeria’s digital vulnerability, citing data showing that the country had approximately 109 million internet users as of the end of 2025, and reporting by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime that Nigeria lost an estimated N1.1 trillion to cybercrime between 2017 and 2023. These numbers are not just statistics; they represent the stolen savings of small business owners, the compromised identities of ordinary citizens, the trust of online customers, and the vulnerability of the digital ecosystem on which modern life increasingly depends. He warned that security threats are now being fought in the information space, where misinformation can heighten public anxiety, undermine confidence in institutions, and complicate security operations. To counter these threats, the Centre has adopted a guiding philosophy: one crisis, one coordinated response. This means that in any emergency, all relevant institutions should speak with one voice, share accurate information, and work together rather than issuing competing statements. Olukolade also announced the unveiling of the Nigerian Journal of Crisis Communication, a new platform for scholarly and professional exchange, and noted that the crisis communication hub established after the inaugural symposium in November 2025 had won the Golden World Award of the International Public Relations Association—a sign that Nigeria’s work in this field is gaining international recognition. His caution against institutional rivalries was particularly important, as he warned that no institution should be so protective of its territory that it becomes an obstacle to collective progress. This is a familiar problem in Nigerian governance, where different agencies sometimes prioritize their own image over the public good, but Olukolade insisted that the stakes are too high for such petty infighting, especially as the nation moves toward major democratic milestones.
The symposium concluded with a strong call for sustained collaboration among security agencies, government institutions, the media, and technology platforms to ensure that the public receives timely, accurate, and consistent information, and to prevent misinformation from worsening the country’s already complex security challenges. The stakeholders were particularly concerned about the period ahead of the 2027 general elections, warning that disinformation, deepfakes, and impersonation could be weaponized to erode public confidence in democratic institutions, provoke ethnic and religious tensions, and destabilize the electoral process before a single ballot is cast. This is not a distant threat; it is an immediate and evolving danger that requires constant vigilance, investment in fact-checking, media literacy, and public education, and a willingness by all actors—including political parties, security agencies, and tech companies—to act responsibly. The human side of this issue is often overlooked: behind every viral post that calls for violence, every manipulated video that shows a politician saying something they never said, every fake account that spreads hatred, there is a real person who may be frightened, angered, or radicalized by what they see. The conference’s message, ultimately, was one of shared destiny and shared responsibility. Nigeria cannot defeat its enemies if its own citizens do not trust the information their institutions provide, and institutions cannot earn that trust unless they are transparent, coordinated, and truthful. The gathering in Kaduna was a rare moment of honest reflection, in which military leaders acknowledged the limitations of force, governors admitted the importance of communication, and media professionals recognized their role in the fight for public understanding. It served as a reminder that in a democracy, security is not just about protecting borders and buildings; it is about protecting the shared trust that binds a society together. And in an age of deepfakes, cybercrime, and viral misinformation, that trust must be defended every single day, by every single institution, and with the full participation of the Nigerian people themselves.