When some individuals referred to Africa as the Dark Continent, many thought it was because of our inability to power our economy through constant electricity supply or due to our skin colour, while others think its due to witchcraft which has given birth to many religious businesses aimed at fighting witchcraft on the continent.

At the moment, there is a growing trend among African leaders to engage in internet shutdown and social media spying. As at September 2017, the number of internet disruptions is seven namely: Cameroon, Morocco, Mali, Senegal, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Togo.

While governments of Algeria, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Egypt, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Tunisia and Uganda have spent millions of dollars on social media spying paying companies like Facebook, Twitter, Google to provide them with user information of their citizens.

Here in Nigeria, the federal government have joined the fray as they are now requesting for user information of citizens from social media providers and Telecommunication companies.

The federal and state governments in Nigeria has not hidden their intention to monitor the user information of citizens as it was reported in 2014 that states like Akwa Ibom, Rivers and others spent millions of dollars to procure spying equipment and, while we are yet to experience total internet disruptions as being experienced in Southern Cameroon at the moment, we are experiencing something close to that.

Its now the practice of government officials, especially the “VIPs” to jam network and data services anywhere they are for what they tagged questionable “security reasons”.

In the recent qualifier match between Nigeria and Cameroon at Godswill Akpabio stadium in Uyo, it was reported that there was total Internet and network disruptions throughout the period of the match as a result of the Presence of the Governor and other “VIPs”.

However, at the rematch in Cameroon, there was full internet services including free Wi-Fi in the stadium, something not obtainable in Nigeria.

This intolerance was what led to the presentation of the failed social media bill at the National Assembly last year and now the Nigerian Army wants to enact a replica of China Internet police over here by monitoring social media as part of its surveillance programme.

Connecting all these scattered dots, it points to something that African leaders have zero tolerance for the social media and they will do whatever it takes to control its usage to suit themselves.

Editor