Tukur Buratai, the Nigeria Chief of Army Staff, has indirectly blamed Nigerians for the inability of the military and police force to contain terrorism, banditry, kidnapping and so on. He made this accusation on Monday 20 July, 2020, when he visited the President to give him updates on national security matters. Buratai told journalists that it is up to Nigerians to decide on whether they want insecurity to end or not.

Buratai said “If Nigerians want it to end today, I can assure you it will end today if everybody joins hands because these bandits are not outside Nigeria. They are not from foreign land.” Furthermore, he said, “Like I said, if we want it to end, the totality of the people’s effort must be put into it to see that insecurity in this country is reduced to the barest minimum.”

I don’t know exactly who these “Nigerians” the Chief of Army Staff is referring to, but I hope it is not the common man that wants to move around the country freely. From what he said, people that don’t live in Nigeria will think that we are enjoying the high rate of insecurity in the country. People are losing their lives and properties daily. Farms have turned into settlements for these people. Villages have been sacked. And many Nigerians have become refugees in their own country. So who exactly is Buratai blaming for the incapability of the people we trusted to fight insecurity? Or is he saying Nigerians should find weapons and join the battlefield?

It is possible that the army chief is indirectly telling Nigerians that they are harbouring these people and shielding them from security personnel. It is possible that he believes that these villagers that are killed in their numbers know where these men hide but wouldn’t divulge the information. It is also possible that he believed Nigerians willingly allowed their children to be recruited by these bandits and insurgents.

If the army chief is blaming us for aiding and abetting insecurities in this country, I believe they have those that gather information for them. Shouldn’t he have gone for that? He also made mention of the army setting up surveillance for these bandits; isn’t that for finding who these people are and where they hide? If they are having problems locating these insurgents and their hideouts, he should say so, so that whistleblowers will do their jobs.

Another possibility is that Buratai may not be blaming ordinary Nigerians but the elites, especially the political ones. It is possible that he is indirectly telling us that certain people are frustrating his works. We have seen videos of Nigerian soldiers complaining about lack of weapons with which to fight insurgency. We have heard of probes concerning the misappropriation of funds meant for the purchase of weapons. We have also heard that corruption thrives among the top military officials and elites. Of course we don’t need to talk about politicians and public servants. So could it then be that Buratai is asking these groups of people to say “yes” so that insurgency will end?

I truly don’t know who is delaying the containment of insecurity in this country but that person or persons need to be contained immediately. People that have seen these bandits said that they are ordinary civilians with guns. We have heard that these people are no match for our military men, so what is actually the problem? Imagine untrained men ambushing and killing many trained military men; or even engaging our soldiers in duels and winning. This just comes to tell you that something is seriously wrong somewhere. And honestly, unless that hole is blocked and the thing that causes it is removed, insecurity will overwhelm us in the nearest future.

We need to encourage our Chief of Army Staff to do more in his battle against insurgency. We shall ask him not to relent in his efforts towards protecting the lives and properties of Nigerians. As for whether Nigerians wanted the insurgency to end, we say a big “YES, we want insecurity to end today”. As for where those people are hiding, let us tell him to start from our farms. We are tired of being captives in our own country.

Facebook on Tuesday added a label to a post made by president Trump, which alleges that mail-in voting is riddled with fraud.

“Mail-in voting, unless changed by the courts, will lead to the most CORRUPT ELECTION in our Nation’s History! #RIGGEDELECTION,” Trump posted.

This marks the first time the social media giant is labeling Trump’s post for fact-checking. It added a label to the post prompting Facebook users to get accurate information about voting on usa.gov site.

Facebook has been at the helm of social media disinformation controversy, having allowed a horde of false information from politicians, especially the right wing, to thrive on the platform for long.

Advocacy group had last month launched a campaign to stop companies from advertising on Facebook as a way of getting the Silicon Valley giant to check cyberbullying, false information and racial abuse.

The campaign succeeded in getting many ad buyers, including Coca Cola, to pull out of Facebook for the month of July, causing the platform to lose a fortune and call for dialogue.

As the US election nears, calls to hold social media platforms responsible about information they allow have not been louder. Facebook said last month it will work to tame political disinformation on the platform by creating Voting Information Center.

“We are creating a Voting Information Center to share authoritative information on how and when you can vote, including voter registration, voting by mail and early voting.

“During a pandemic when people may be afraid of going to polls, sharing authoritative information on voting by mail will be especially important. We’ll be showing the Voting Information Center at the top of the Facebook and Instagram apps over the coming months,” Zuckerberg said.

Trump has made the list of political figures whose posts were labeled by Facebook since the announcement was made last month, including democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. But then, the development has questioned Zuckerberg’s earlier stand on fact-checking social media posts.

In May, when Twitter labeled Trump’s tweet over mail-in voting misinformation, Zuckerberg said it wasn’t right because social media platforms should be acting as “an arbiter of truth,” and he would not do that on Facebook.

His comment appeared to have fueled Trump’s anger over the incident, that he intensified his threat to shut down Twitter. He even quoted Zuckerberg in his attempt to smear Twitter.

Zuckerberg’s sudden turnaround is believed to have stemmed from the pressure from advocacy groups. More and more companies are joining the boycott Facebook movement as the company and the groups failed to reach a consensus via meetings.

“Many of the changes we’re announcing today come directly from feedback from the civil rights community and reflect months of work with our civil rights auditors,” Zuckerberg admitted in a post last month.

Part of the changes announced include labeling posts made by politicians that Facebook would let up previously.

“A handful of times a year, we leave up content that would otherwise violate our policies if the public interest value outweighs the risk of harm. Often, seeing speech from politicians is in the public interest, and in the same way that news outlets will report what a politician says, we think people should be able to see it for themselves on our platforms.

“We will soon start labeling some of the content we leave up because it is deemed newsworthy, so people can know when this is the case. We’ll allow people to share this content to condemn it, just like we do with other problematic content, because this is an important part of how we discuss what’s acceptable in our society – but we’ll add a prompt to tell people that the content they’re sharing may violate our policies,” he added.

The CEO said Facebook is investing heavily in both AI systems and human review teams so hate speech is being removed before they are reported. He said a study from the EU showed that the company now acts faster and removes a greater percent of hate speech than other major internet platforms including YouTube and Twitter.

The EU ended its meeting on economic recovery with a historic stimulus deal on Monday. In the long meeting between the 27 members of the Union in Brussels, which lasted for over 90 hours, they resolved to raise €750 billion ($857 billion) that will be used to rebuild the economy shattered by the coronavirus pandemic.

The talk has lasted that long due to existing issues needing to be resolved by the members, which borders on how to divide the amount between grants and loans, how to oversee its investment and how to link it with the EU’s democratic values.

Disagreement between members had stalled a recovery plan for the European Union back in April, when €540 billion was proposed as part of bailout for EU countries worst hit by the health crisis.

This time, they agreed to distribute €390 billion ($445 billion) as grants to the hardest hit member countries while the rest will be given as loans. As part of the agreement, €1.1 trillion ($1.2 trillion) will be provided for the 2021-2027 EU budget, a historic sum described as “classic” by the EU leadership.

“It is an ambitious and comprehensive package combining the classical budget with an extraordinary recovery effort destined to tackle the effects of an unprecedented crisis in the best interest of the EU,” the statement from EU leaders said.

Aside from the economic impact of the agreement, the deal signals a stronger European Union where members could overlook their differences and pursue a common goal.

The European Council president, Charles Michel told the press on Tuesday that the deal signifies a “strong” and “united” Europe.

“We did it! Europe is strong. Europe is united. This is a strong deal, and most importantly, this is the right deal for Europe right now,” he said, adding that it was the first time members of the European Union were “jointly enforcing our economies against the crisis.”

Considering the past records of the EU meetings, where discussions were clouded in emotions of disagreement, the members have leaped with the strength of compromise to scale the anti-progress hurdles which were usually based on getting the “frugal four,” Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Netherlands and Finland to agree with others.

In the past, the group had put the grant for hardly hit members at €375 billion, whereas some members such as Spain and Italy didn’t want to go below €400 billion while the “frugal four” didn’t want to go above the proposed €375 billion. The “frugal four” were cajoled to compromise through a promise of rebates on their EU contributions. Spain, Italy and others who were previously keen on €400 billion agreed to the newly suggested €390 billion as a compromise.

The frugal four had opposed the suggested €500 billion grant because the repayment plan means every member country will have to contribute, and they were not ready to pay for a loan they were not the beneficiaries.

However, the new deal means that the European Union will have to look for new ways to fund the package. The Commission said it’s proposing fresh ways to raise funds which includes introducing ‘digital levy’ for tech companies, and new tax on financial transactions. It added that it’s considering updating an emissions trading program, which limits the number of greenhouse gases companies are permitted to emit without paying a fine. It said the restrictions imposed on some companies could be extended to maritime and aviation industries.

But the deal also means the European Union will become a big debtor in the financial market for the first time, with a repayment plan stretched to 2058. However, it doesn’t seem to be a problem as all members expressed satisfaction with the deal, though there are still other matters that need to be addressed, including winning the trust of the European parliament.

European Commission president Ursula Von der Leyen tweeted at the end of the meeting that the Union has taken a historic step “we all can be proud of.”

“Today we’ve taken a historic step, we all can be proud of. But other important steps remain. First and most important: to gain the support of the European parliament. Nobody should take our European Union for granted,” he said.

While there is still a thwarted relationship between the EU member nations, the objective has been achieved based on a collective willingness to compromise.

“We showed collective responsibility and solidarity and we show also our belief in our common future,” Michel said.