Boko Haram is evolving its tactics by leveraging social media and drone technology, a security expert has revealed.
Bulama Bukarti, a senior fellow at the Extremism Policy Unit of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, sounded the alarm on Sunday during an appearance on Channels Television’s Politics Today.
He warned that the insurgent group is now using platforms like TikTok to spread its extremist ideology and interact with followers.
“Right now, when you go on TikTok, you will see Boko Haram members’ accounts. They host live programmes 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,” he said.
Bukarti’s warning follows recent remarks by Senator Ali Ndume of Borno South, who lamented that the state had lost 100 soldiers and 280 civilians to Boko Haram attacks in just six months.
The security analyst, who has spent years researching the group, shared a troubling example of how he was personally targeted by the group on social media.
“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,” he noted.
But the concerns extend beyond online propaganda. Bukarti disclosed that Boko Haram is now using unmanned aerial vehicles to track military movements in Nigeria’s northeast.
“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,” he stated.
He further detailed the group’s recent onslaughts against military camps.
“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.”
