Nigeria has long understood security in terms of soldiers, checkpoints, armoured vehicles, and the grim mathematics of casualty reports. But in a Kaduna conference hall during the Second National Symposium on Crisis Communication, a different kind of battlefield was placed under the spotlight. The Centre for Crisis Communication (CCC) had brought together retired generals, active security chiefs, government spokespersons, and communication specialists to examine a threat that cannot be stopped by bullets or barricades: the weaponisation of information. With Nigeria’s 2027 general elections approaching, the gathering was not an academic exercise. Deepfakes, disinformation, impersonation, and sophisticated cyber manipulations have turned…

There is a strange kind of fame that exists in the modern social media landscape, a notoriety built less on achievement and more on presence, on being the voice that never goes quiet in an endlessly scrolling world. The man behind the Around Liverpool account has achieved this in spades, gathering a combined audience of nearly 200,000 people across platforms, including a Facebook page with 133,000 followers. To many, he is simply a source of local news, a page that feels familiar, immediate, and constantly active. But to city officials, police forces, and a growing number of residents, he has…