Bulama Bukarti, a security analyst and senior fellow at the Extremism Policy Unit of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, raised concerns on Sunday that Boko Haram is increasingly gaining traction on major social media platforms, particularly TikTok. He warned that the group is using these platforms to spread its ideology, recruit followers, and glorify its violent activities, which could pose a significant threat to national and global security.
Bukarti spoke when he was featured as a guest on Channels Television’s Politics Today.
The revelation comes barely one week after the senator for Borno South District, Ali Ndume, lamented that Borno State lost 100 soldiers and 280 civilians to the onslaught carried out by Boko Haram insurgents in six months.
But Bukarti, who has researched the extremist group for many years, raised a fresh alarm that the insurgents are now propagating their ideology on social media amid video clips and live streaming.
He said, “Right now, when you go on TikTok, you will see Boko Haram members’ accounts. They host live programs and live shows where they propagate Boko Haram’s ideology; they justify the group’s violence, which they do in the Hausa language. They field questions from the audience and answer comments that are written.
“Even this week, there was a Boko Haram member who posted a 10-minute video on TikTok attacking me for speaking up against the escalating violence of the group. But it’s not just that. We know that Boko Haram now operates unmanned drones. They surveil military formations in the northeast with unmanned drones.
“What we have seen over the past three months was over seven Boko Haram attacks on super camps, on Nigerian military super camps. In Sabon Gari and lots of other places, they overran the camps. They dispersed the military, killed some, captured others and stole weapons, food, medicine and other equipment from those areas and fled into the bush.”
