Abstract
This study appraises how the Nigerian military used social media platforms to provide a counter narrative and quell the online firestorm regarding the Nigerian Defence Academy's (NDA’s) terrorists’ attack and how Nigerians reacted to these strategic communication items or lack of items about the attack. The study analysed 8,210 Facebook posts and comments from Defence Headquarters Nigeria and Facebook users in Nigeria. Findings demonstrate that the Nigerian military adopted silence as a strategy and thus, did not effectively utilise social media platforms to provide a counter narrative or information to quell the online firestorm regarding the NDA terrorists’ attack. Results further illustrate that Nigerian Facebook users criticised the Federal Government, and the military, and were disgusted that a fortress such as the NDA could be attacked and demanded the firing of the Service Chiefs and NDA leaders for their response and attempted cover-up of the attack. The study concludes that while a high reservoir of trust moderates the short and long-term effects of an online firestorm, inactions during an online firestorm aggravates the effect of such an online crisis.
Keywords
Introduction
A breaking news headline that read, ‘bandits attack NDA, kill two Officers, abduct one’ posted on Facebook in the morning of August 24, 2021, caused a stir and an online firestorm against the Nigerian military. The breaking news was about the terrorists’ attack on the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA), a security fortress in Nigeria (Channels TV, 2021). In the report, the attack was confirmed by the spokesman for the Academy, Major Bashir Muhammad Jajira. The spokesman reportedly said, ‘the security architecture of the NDA was compromised early this morning by unknown gunmen. We lost two personnel and one was abducted’ (Channels TV, 2021).
The uproar caused by the posting of the aforesaid headline was vast and poignant. The headline went viral and brought about a quake of reactions which then served as a catalyst to a deep and robust coverage of the terrorist attack in the NDA by the mainstream media. The coverage caused by the headline led to incisive questions asked of both the political and military leaders of Nigeria. Nigerians were shaken that such a military fortress was bridged and throwing the country into panic (Adegbola & Okunloye, 2022; Uwalaka & Nwala, 2021). This critical coverage forced the military to engage with their citizens online. While this incident is relatively new, the military's interests in the media are not. This is because the military has always strived to influence media houses and court media platforms as a way of moulding a positive image, especially during firestorms. Firestorms are sudden bursts of negative attention in cases of controversy and outrage (Lamba et al., 2015). An online firestorm is a sudden discharge of large quantities of messages containing negative word-of-mouth and complaint behaviour against a person, company or group in social media networks (Johnen et al., 2018; Pfeffer et al., 2014). Online firestorms have also been defined as a sudden discharge of large quantities of negative word-of-mouth that spreads rapidly through online social networks (Mochalova & Nanopoulos, 2014; Pfeffer & Carley, 2013).
While the military use social media platforms for things such as intelligence collection, perception management, building counter narratives, deception and demoralising adversary forces (Tewari, 2019), contemporary war and conflict research have often centred on the relationship between the media and military actors. Studies have focused on social media role in non-contact warfare (Tewari, 2019), and social media as tools for the military (Sethi, 2013). Others examined how social media is stripping the military of certain controls in society (Jones & Baines, 2013), and social media use among partners of defence force personnel (Johnson et al., 2018). While these studies provide wonderful insights into the dynamics of contemporary war and conflict, these approaches to mediatised war and conflict fail to engage with how social media platforms enable militaries around the world to shape people's perception of the military and help militaries around the world to communicate directly to their target audience by circumventing legacy media during an online firestorm.
Furthermore, many marketing communication and crisis communication studies have focussed on online firestorms that concern bad news against a product, brands and commercial organisations (Lamba et al., 2015; Park et al., 2012; Pfeffer et al., 2014), and some other studies looked into the diffusion of opinion in clustered networks and brand communities and brand crises in the digital age (Hansen et al., 2018; Herhausen et al., 2019; Pfeffer & Carley, 2013; Scholz & Smith, 2019), and the effect of trust to brand especially during firestorms and their impact on short and long-term consequences (Li & Sun, 2022; Shin et al., 2016; Singh et al., 2020; Yannopoulou et al., 2011). However, there is hardly a study examining how the military and departments of defence reacts during firestorms and the effects of online firestorms on the long-term trust of the military. Consequently, this study fills the gap in the literature by interrogating the Nigerian military's use of social media for strategic communication about online firestorms emanating from the NDA attack. This is done by appraising how the military use social media platforms for perception management, building counter narratives, deception, deterring, curbing online firestorms and demoralising adversary forces. To achieve this, the study sought to answer the question, how did the Nigerian military use social media platforms to provide counter narratives and quell the online firestorm regarding the terrorists’ attack at the NDA?
The NDA Terrorist Attack
In the early hours of Tuesday, August 24, 2021, the Nigerian Defence Academy reportedly witnessed the invasion of terrorists into its staff quarters where two officers were killed, one officer was abducted, and some other officers were injured (Tijjani, 2021). It was reported that the terrorists masked in military uniforms, drove through the gate into the academy. While inside the NDA, they proceeded to the officers’ quarters. According to reports, the Terrorists started shooting once they got to the staff quarters. Two officers were killed, and another officer was kidnapped during the gunfight (Channels TV, 2021). It was further reported that the shootings notified the troops of the NDA's Quick Response Team who raced to the area but were unable to salvage the situation as the terrorists killed two of their colleagues and abducted another before they got there (Channels TV, 2021). Although Boko Haram, the terrorist group that has terrorised Nigerians for many years did not claim responsibility for the NDA attack, many observers and commentators suspect that the Sect carried out the attack. Boko Haram is a transnational extremist Islamic Sect based in Nigeria (Ette & Joe, 2018; Ndinojuo et al., 2020; Uwalaka & Nwala, 2021). The suspicion is based on the group's reach, tactics and subsequent attack that was foiled by the Nigerian Military (Primium Time, 2022).
The attack caused a stir in Nigeria as many people and media organisations criticised the Nigerian government and leadership of the Nigerian military. In scathing sets of editorials, the Punch, Vanguard, and the Guardian newspapers condemned the attack and pilloried the Nigerian government and the military leadership. Some believed that the infiltration of the NDA, a security fortress brought to a ‘new low the parlous security situation in the country’ (Vanguard, 2021b). Others criticised the President for his lack of leadership around securing lives and property of Nigerians. For example, an editorial in decrying the inactions of the Nigerian presidency, opined, ‘as the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), continues to live in denial, the full extent of Nigeria's collapsed security system hit home harshly on Tuesday …’ (Punch, 2021). The persistence of the criticism and unhappiness of the populace forced President Buhari to comment on the attack. In his statement, President Buhari said that the ‘attack on NDA won't deter Armed Forces’ resolve to end criminality’ (Elumoye, 2021).
Twenty-five days later, Major Christopher Datong, who was abducted during the attack regained his freedom from the terrorists as he was rescued by the security forces in Nigeria (Sahara Reporters, 2021). On November 9, 2021, a Nigerian Airforce Officer was arrested on alleged arms and ammunition offences in relation to the NDA terrorists’ attack (Sunday, 2021).
Nigerians were unhappy with the unfettered access that the terrorists had during the NDA attack. The inability of the military to challenge the terrorists caused the military to be inundated with blame, anger, and accusations of unprofessionalism, and weakness. The turmoil and attendant adverse commentaries, analyses and swelling negative reactions on social media platforms put the military in crisis mode and under pressure as the online firestorms gained traction. This is unsurprising as Nigerians have seen the Nigerian military struggle to combat the Boko Haram crisis in the country (Uwalaka & Nwala, 2021) and the ineffectiveness of the Nigerian government in addressing such crisis (Adegbola & Okunloye, 2022). This study attempts to systematically appraise how the Nigerian military used social media platforms to provide counter narratives and contain the online firestorm regarding the NDA terrorist's attack in Kaduna State of Nigeria.
Appraising Online Firestorms and the Military
The online firestorm concept was coined and popularised by Pfeffer and his colleagues (Lamba et al., 2015; Pfeffer & Carley, 2013; Pfeffer et al., 2014). In appraising the beneficial aspects of social media for word-of-mouth propagation of new ideas and products, Pfeffer et al. (2014) delved into the impact of negative online word-of-mouth and complaint behaviour. They discussed how social media users create huge waves of outrage within just few hours of any questionable statement of activity by brands, politicians, government institutions such as the military, and celebrities (Pfeffer et al., 2014). These waves of outrage were conceptualised as firestorms. An online firestorm is the sudden discharge of large quantities of messages, containing the negative word-of-mouth and complaint behaviour against a person, company, or group in social networks (Pfeffer et al., 2014, p. 118). The description and analysis brought the concept to marketing communication. Examples of online firestorms include politicians, ‘Weinergate’ (Petri, 2011), celebrities, ‘Ashton Kutcher’ (Barker, 2011), organisations such as Bud Light (Johnen et al., 2018), McDonalds (Pfeffer et al., 2014), Uber (Hansen et al., 2018) etc. All these examples induced an apology and, in some instances, damaged the capacity of the target to return to their earlier level.
The swiftness of attack and devasting nature and effectiveness of online firestorms have led scholars to label firestorms as different things. It has been referred to as ‘collaborative brand attacks’ (Rauschnabel et al., 2016), ‘shit storms’ (Einwiller et al., 2017) and ‘social media backlash’ (BBC, 2015). At the heart of an online firestorm is the sudden occurrence of predominantly negative social media expressions against a person, organisation or government department. The impact of an online firestorm if uncontrolled can lead to a decrease in patronage or support, and low approval of a government institution such as the military. It has been argued that the severity of an organisation's (government institution) failure seems to be the dominating variable in an online firestorm as people with higher brand involvement seem to forgive an organisation or government institution and people with lower brand involvement score higher on organisational hate (Steiniger, 2016). A study has further illustrated that organisations suffer from a decrease in perception after an online firestorm. For example, findings indicate that 58% of affected organisations, ‘suffer long term negative effects’ (Hansen et al., 2018, p. 557). This finding suggests that social media firestorms can indeed harm an organisation or a government institution. It has been observed that a higher moral arousal of an issue increases perceived similarity with previous participation, which in turn affects whether and how people participate (Johnen et al., 2018). The point here is that firestorms caused by a socio-political failure have a strong impact on the supervising government department. This is because the public blames the government institution for such a failure.
Scholars have also studied the effects of online firestorms on organisation trust. A study has demonstrated that generalised public images of a crisis initiate a public perception of risk, which provides more negative effects on organisational trust than the actual experience does (Yannopoulou et al., 2011). This means that when trust is betrayed, that people become uncomfortable, bewildered and angry as meaning and reality are mainly media constructed (Beck, 1992; Gamson et al., 1992; Giddens, 1990). People’s reactions to risk or firestorms fundamentally rely on communicated information and socially legitimised perceptions of risks as ‘one no longer ascends merely from personal experience to general judgements, rather general knowledge devoid of personal experience becomes the central determinant of personal experience’ (Beck, 1992, p. 72). Singh et al. (2020) suggest that corporations should respond to crises through a bolstering strategy that promotes existing corporate goodwill without influencers’ involvement. However, when leveraging influencers support, they recommend that organisations should inoculate against manipulative inferences by communicating value-driven motives behind the organisation-influencer partnership (Singh et al., 2020). Other results also show that service functionality and value-related crises harm organisational trust and both organisational perceived value and perceived risk play an intermediary role in the mechanism (Li & Sun, 2022) and that organisational familiarity plays an essential role in the relationship between an organisational crisis and trust.
The military involvement in and use of media has advanced substantially in the last two decades, and coverage of military activity, often in relation to conflicts and their aftermath have significantly increased as well. Corner and Parry (2017) argue that a complex relationship has emerged between the military and their publics. According to them, a relatively simple approval for military action or preparation for it, in specific instances and of the scale, nature and management are less found. This is because there is repeatedly a more nervous, puzzled facet to public perceptions, ‘an interest in knowing more about the background to “success” and “failure” than was previously thought useful or desirable’ (Corner & Parry, 2017, p. 4).
Military personnel like the rest of the world use social media platforms for mundane activities such as the building of cultural identity. It has been noted that the convolutions, mediatory practices and mundane social media rituals that military personnel employ resonate widely with the youths and digital cultures (Maltby & Thornham, 2016). Social media by its unique features attracts and tempts the military. For example, social media platforms enable people to engage in ways not envisaged before, help set agendas and build public opinion. Social media platforms help coordinate collective and connective actions and are even used for propaganda guerrilla warfare (Tewari, 2019). The reverse is that social media can also aid in dissipating and dispelling the strong influence that the military holds as well as privacy issues. According to Jones and Baines (2013), social media platforms are altering the way information is shared worldwide in a new and unpredictable way. Even more important in the military and media relationship is perception management and the creation of narratives. These can aptly be carried out through social media platforms. As a potent cognitive weapon, social media can be used to shape views and sway opinions (Uwalaka & Nwala, 2021; Veerasamy & Labuschagne, 2018). Social media can be used for perception management. This is because of its speed, accessibility, reach and ease of use. Thus, social media can be used to effortlessly manipulate ideas, shape views and swing opinions (Veerasamy & Labuschagne, 2018). Results have shown that the ‘what would you do’ strategy generates significantly greater audience engagement during the Israeli wars than anything else (Yarchi et al., 2017).
Using social media to communicate war and control of narratives as to which part is the offender has only increased as well as potently deployed by militaries around the world. In this context, social media is not only used to control the narratives but also used to praise and confer gallantry commemorations to military personnel. In their study that analysed the state of information warfare on Twittersphere between India and Pakistan in the wake of the Pulwama attack in the Kashmir region and the subsequent retaliatory strike by Indian forces inside Pakistan, Hussain et al. (2021) found that contributors from the two countries mainly posted on their own hashtag and did not engage in counter-arguments. This lack of counter-arguments resulted in overwhelming support for the two countries in their own hashtags and outright criticism in the hashtags originating from the other country (Hussain et al., 2021). This result reveals that social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are now used to engage with ordinary citizens and make the non-military citizen a warrior or ‘online warrior’ who fights for their national defence online, shaping narratives relating to their war and inducing sympathy from neutral observers while praising their forces for their military (kinetic) finesse. In this instance, the non-military citizens became influence peddlers and ‘online warriors’ for the good of their countries.
The military's need to communicate to the people is vital in today's media landscape. Social media platforms are used for the strategic communication of government narratives (Mangat, 2018). In this case, the government narrative and that of the military is one and the same. For example, although the Canadian military is apolitical, the military is, however, controlled by the civilian leaders. Consequently, the military's strategic use of social media platforms to mould the positive public perception of the military usually reflects the views of the civilian government (Mangat, 2018). In this instance, it is likely that the military does not only enhance their image but also that of the civilian government in Canada. Similarly, it has been noted that social media platforms were used strategically to facilitate public-military and people-to-people engagement (Khan & Pratt, 2020). The study further uncovered that motivational frames online were the most dominant forms of communication used to generate dialogue between the military and the public in Pakistan's war against terrorism (Khan & Pratt, 2020).
Results from a recent study have illustrated why the military use social media platforms to communicate war and to control narratives. Findings point to the loss of credibility and distrust of the military and government. In the conflict between Jammu and Kashmir, findings indicate that the Indian military's inability to control the narratives online led the public to criticise the military and its intellectuals while raising awareness about the conflict and the killing of Burhan Wani (Gabel et al., 2020). The significance of the strategic use of social media was illuminated when it was discovered that the online war on who controls the narratives was evident as tweets separated people into friends and foes depending on if such a people or organisation agrees or disagrees with the Twitter user's opinion (Gabel et al., 2020). From the forgoing, it is evident an unchecked firestorm has the potential to damage the mutual trust that exists between a government department and the public. When trust is not there, it damages how the people view the government department and that can impact patronage and support. This paper sees the backlash during the NDA attack as an online firestorm. This view is similar to the reactions that trailed the Afghan troop's withdrawal and evacuations (Collinson, 2021; Parker, 2021). This study attempts to examine the strategies the Nigerian military adopted to halt the online firestorm during the NDA terrorist attack.
Methods
This study analyses the use of Facebook in response to an online firestorm regarding the terrorists’ attack at the Nigerian Defence Academy. In this context, social media platforms provide several opportunities to carry out research on a wide range of topics. The analysis of social media content during crises or firestorms can offer important insights irrespective of researchers’ physical location and thus, allows scholars to access data in different places where field exploration could be improbable (Gabel et al., 2020). It has also been noted that Facebook and Twitter are two of the most favourable sites to evaluate global deliberations on crucial issues due to the open nature of their data (Uwalaka, 2022a, 2022b). Researchers are attracted to social media platforms since they can collect thousands of content easily and openly available with simple configurable tools. The large amount of data that can be collected from social media platforms has given rise to the use of data science tools to study ‘big data’ (Marwick & Boyd, 2014; Uwalaka & Watkins, 2018). Although concerns have been raised regarding the appropriateness of using hashtags as a sampling approach in big data analytics (Rafail, 2018), hashtags remain one of the most frequently used methods for capturing topic-specific data in social media platforms, particularly Twitter and Facebook.
This study adopts a qualitative content analysis technique and specifically utilized social media network analytics (Bryman, 2016). The data was obtained by manually identifying all posts and comments that were posted on Facebook by Defence Headquarters Nigeria between August 24, 2021, and December 20, 2021. Considering the limited period observed, this study has analysed a relatively small sample. Thus, the study cannot claim to be able to represent public opinion on this matter in its entirety.
The aim of this study is to systematically appraise how the Nigerian military used social media platforms to provide counter narratives or lack thereof, to contain the online firestorm regarding the terrorists’ attack in the NDA. This study analysed 8,210 Facebook posts and comments from the official Defence Headquarters Nigeria. The Defence Headquarters Nigeria is the coordinating body of the Nigerian military and supervises the activities of all the different commands such as the Navy, the Army, and the Airforce. Facebook posts were adjudged to be appropriate as they are among the two most used social media platforms by the Nigerian military. Twitter will be inappropriate in this case because the Nigerian military suspended their Twitter account due to the ban of Twitter use in Nigeria by the Nigerian President (Adepetun, 2021). The posts and comments were manually scraped from the Facebook page of Defence Headquarters Nigeria, and later imported first into a Microsoft word document and then moved into an NVivo for analysis. NVivo is a qualitative data analysis package that aids scholars to generate topics and additional pertinent trends as well as charts in a qualitative data set. This software is chosen for this research because the purpose was to create familiar themes from the Facebook posts and comments. This approach has been employed by previous studies to investigate their data (Gabel et al., 2020). The intention here is to categorise Nigerian military Facebook posts and comments regarding the terrorists’ attack at the Nigerian Defence Academy and the reaction of the Nigerian online public.
Following, Hsieh and Shannon (2005), this study uses the typical content analysis which permits an exploratory methodology not built on preconceived classifications. The method of creating categories begins by repetitively reading the material to uncover repeated words or themes – codes, from the data. Based on how these codes connect, categories and sub-categories are established to group the codes into bands representing meaningful and distinct themes.
From this process, the data set was categorised into two sets of data, the posts about the terrorists’ attack from the Nigerian military and the comments that these posts received from Facebook users and posts from Facebook users regarding the attack. Out of the 8,210 posts and comments, only two were posts from the Nigerian military while 8,208 were comments and posts from Facebook users regarding the attack. Of the two posts recorded for the Nigerian military, only one was about the attack. Even that single post was made in refutation of an online news report. Thus, the Nigerian military failed to address or acknowledge the incident in their Facebook page.
All posts and comments in the sample were coded based on the coding guidelines listed in the codebook. The procedure and shapes of classification of the comments and posts followed the coding rules as shown in Table 1. Coding rules were defined only for the categories, not for sub-categories. From this process, four broad categories were identified, each containing several sub-categories. These categories are (1) criticism of government; (2) criticism of the military; (3) the terrorists’ attack; (4) cover-up.
Codebook for Content Analysis.
Results
Posts and comments from the social media page of the Defence Headquarters Nigeria regarding the terrorists’ attack at the staff quarters of the NDA were content analysed to understand the Nigerian military's use of social media for strategic communication about the NDA attack, and how the people responded to their communication or lack of communication on Facebook.
Themes From the Posts and Comments
As shown in Figure 1, the Nigerian military did not post any acknowledgement of the terrorists’ attack at the NDA. They also failed to provide any update regarding the attack. They were simply silent on the issue of the attack of August 24, 2021. The Nigerian military then started posting about other things on August 25, 2021. In one of the Facebook posts that the military updated, titled, ‘Northeast: CDC hails citizens’ support, allays fear on surrendered insurgents, as DHQ engages military veterans on security parley’, the Nigerian military discussed other activities of the military while ignoring the NDA terrorist's attack. This Facebook post angered Nigerians on Facebook that they started criticising the military and the government.
Sample Facebook posts and comments.
The military failed to respond. The only post from the Nigerian military was a response to an online news report from Cable Online news. The Nigerian military refuted the claim from the news report that personnel on duty at the NDA CCTV monitoring room were asleep when terrorists attacked the officers’ residential quarters leading to the death of two officers and the abduction of one other officer (Vanguard, 2021a, 2021b). The Nigerian military called the report ‘untrue’ and challenged Cable Online news to publish verifiable proof. The press release then further cautioned Cable Online news to: Guide (sic) against being used as a propaganda tool by enemies of our dear country. The Cable Online should not consciously or unconsciously collaborate with these unscrupulous elements to spread unverified stories … while tarnishing the good image and reputation of the personnel of the Armed Forces of Nigeria (AFN)
The Nigerian military posted this long and stern refutational press release and acknowledged the basic information about the NDA terrorists’ attack. This press release was the first and only time that the Nigerian military discussed about the attack. It appeared that the Nigerian military wanted to wish away the attack. The silence of the military was to quieten the people and to force them to forget the issue and move on. That did not work as Nigerians started posting critical messages against the military and the Nigerian Federal Government.
While the Nigerian military strategically remained silent on the issue and even upped the postings of other events, Nigerians on Facebook began to probe into what happened in NDA, Kaduna State. Nigerians on Facebook were unhappy that the military was silent with no update. Of the 8,208 Facebook posts and comments from Facebook users on the NDA attack, 1,308 were categorised as criticism of the government. These were posts and comments that referred to those in government in Nigeria and their policies. This category had sub-categories such as comments around President Muhammadu Buhari's governing style and competence, the government's amnesty policy towards repentant Boko Haram members and the commenters perceived politics in the military. The amnesty policy was one of the policies that Facebook users railed against the most. The feeling from the comments was that the government's rash grant of amnesty has the opposite effect from what the government was trying to achieve. The commenters argued and believed that the NDA attack shows that the terrorists see that the more daring levels of killings they engage in, the more they endear themselves to the Nigerian government and that this increases the terrorist's probability of being granted amnesty. The commenters were strongly against the politics and were forlorn that this was the policy of the Federal government.
For example, in criticising the government, a Facebook user accused the Nigerian leaders of integrating politics into the military. He commented that terrorists and bandits were being treated with kid-glove and even accommodated due to the infusion of politics into the military's activities. He said, ‘had it been IPOB that did that will somebody come to the news conference and use the word -normal?’ This comment alleged that the military would have acted more decisively if those that attacked the NDA were members of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra agitators. This comment alludes to the accusation that the military leaders are not forcefully pursuing the attackers because the majority of the Service Chiefs were Northerners and Muslims. In a Facebook post that is against the amnesty policy of the current Federal Government of Nigeria, and the politicisation of the military, A Facebook user said, ‘Boko Haram are not surrendering rather obeying the C. I. C order to be swapped into the military as plan B for the next phase to Fulanise Nigeria. Let them continue’. Another user posted his disapproval of the amnesty policy of the Nigerian Government. He posted, ‘as long as the military continues to absorb the so-called surrendered/repented Boko Haram members into the Nigerian military services, the sabotage of this nature or more will abound. God bless Nigeria’. Like many posts and comments, the Amnesty policy was unpopular among Nigerian Facebook users. They believed that such a policy encourages and abets insurgency rather than quells them (Table 2).
Overview of the Number of Assigned Posts and Comments by Categories.
About 3,676 of the posts and comments broadly were critical of the military's response after the NDA attack. The posts and comments criticised the military for being weak, lacking in serious investigative abilities and failing to seek justice for their fallen comrades. The posts and comments revealed that Nigerians on Facebook were disappointed with the military. The silence of the military on this attack on social media was read as a weakness, and a dishonourable posture for the military to adopt. A Facebook user commented, ‘whoever is this Major. Gen … is a disgrace to us as a country. When Nigeria as a country is expected to see a military action(s) against those people that invaded one of Nigeria's prestigious institutions, but you are here on Facebook doing something else’. Another user asked the Nigerian army to act and desist from quarrelling with people in reaction to the military's refutational press release. The user urged the military to fish out the perpetrators. The user wondered, ‘the Nigerian Army I knew growing up in the 80's and 90's would have gone crushing by now. What is going on? Is our military really a caricature of its old self?’ Other posts and comments regarding this category are as follows: ‘But it's not untrue that two gallant officers lost their lives and one abducted and in the custody of the bandits. It's a shame that all systems, including Nigeria as a nation have failed’, ‘I demand that the Nigerian Armed Forces, wake up and face their security challenge, and find a lasting solution to this madness. This is a very big slap in the face of AFN’ and ‘Nigerian soldiers are just over hyped set of lazy men and women. I am really sad at the moment that this happened to the Army and 48 hours no arrest has been made, nobody is declared wanted as it is done in other nations. I am terribly disappointed in the military’. The comments and posts show peoples’ dissatisfaction with the military's performance.
|Another 2,945 of the 8,208 posts and comments discussed about the terrorist attack, particularly, the actions of the military in NDA premises when the attack happened. Facebook users in Nigeria were angry at the successful invasion of NDA, the lack of military gallantry in the fortress, and the lack of introspection on why the security of NDA could be bridged so casually without the enemy receiving any fatal blow. About 279 of the posts and comments discussed the cover-up of the incident by the Nigerian military. They talked about the reactive responses to news stories about the attack and the silence of the military on the issue. Facebook users in Nigeria were offended and hurt by the total lack of preparedness of the Nigerian military in the NDA premises to subdue a terrorist attack in the military's own backyard, and they were left wondering what will happen if the military were to fight these insurgents and terrorists in a neutral ground.
For example, when the military started posting and updating their Facebook page with other activities other than the NDA attack, many Facebook users in Nigeria were furious and mocked the military for not encouraging military gallantry. One Facebook user derided the military that it was not by taking pictures with their Army uniforms and claiming to serve the country, she said that the military ‘are a total failure to this country, Nigeria have all the resources to tackle insurgency, but your aim is to Islamise this country, you people should be very careful the world is watching’. The Facebook user was distraught with what she saw as unseriousness almost to the point of connivance between the military leaders and the bandits. To her, there was no other discernible reason the military refused to talk about the attack or respond to the attack. Other posts and comments are as follows: ‘what explanation can the Armed Forces give to the world that such can happen in the NDA? Maybe we as civilians overrated the NDA all these years!’, ‘I suggest you don't deny any accusations until after the investigation. Really, who is free or safe now, when bandits can attack police and NDA and carry out their operations successfully’, ‘can you beat this? You lost 3 officers in this mess and had the audacity to chase shadows? So, the essence of this your post is to inform us that Cable Online goofed even when you have not conducted any investigation. This is preposterous to say the least’, ‘I will not like to say that our military have been demystified. This is the greatest of all lows’, and ‘I am still in shock that bandits gained access into NDA and successfully killed and abduct officers. This incident is a big slap on the entire nation’. These comments and posts demonstrate that Nigerians were really perturbed at the thought that NDA can be successfully invaded and even more concerned on how the military responded to such egregious action.
Discussion and Conclusion
In this study, qualitative content analysis was used to analyse how the Nigerian military uses social media platforms such as Facebook for perception management and curbing online firestorms, and how their citizens reacted to these strategic communication items. The data set was categorised into two: Facebook posts from the Nigerian military regarding the NDA attack and comments and posts by Nigerians on Facebook regarding the NDA attack. The former had only two posts that were not even strategically positioned to assuage the concerns of Nigerians. While the latter was categorised into four broad categories: criticism of the government, criticism of the military, the terrorists’ attack, and the cover-up.
The Nigerian military did not effectively use social media platforms to provide a counter narratives or information to quell the online firestorm regarding the terrorists’ attack on the NDA. The Nigerian military adopted silence as a strategic communication technique regarding the attack. The military refused to acknowledge the terror attack, and did not state what they will do or are doing. It appears the Nigerian military believed that the prodding would stop after a while. However, Nigerians on Facebook were disappointed and began to question the Nigerian military's gallantry, exceptionalism and unbridled duty to service. This silence created a wrong image in the psyche of Facebook users in Nigeria who complained that the military has lost its abilities. The Nigerian military reactively responded with a press release when it was obvious that the tactics were not working. In the press release, the phrase about tarnishing the image of the military in the eyes of the civilian populace stood out. It illustrates that the military's silence was strategic to maintain a good image in the hearts of Nigerians. However, the strategy failed. In 2017, about 57% of Nigerians strongly backed a military rule and trusted the Nigerian military (PEW Research Centre, 2017). However, this relatively strong trust and backing for the military have evaporated. Data from this study show that Nigerians, particularly, those online are unhappy with the military and do not trust the military. This is evident to many including the military as they recently lamented about their negative perception by online communities in Nigeria (Vanguard, 2021a).
The study further demonstrates that due to the chaotic handling of the attack by the military, Facebook users in Nigeria, lost hope, and belief in the military. First, they blamed the government for destroying the Nigerian military with regional politics, and the amnesty policy of forgiving terrorists and recruiting them into the Nigerian military. This policy was condemned by a significant number of comments and posts. Facebook users in Nigeria also criticised the military for appearing weak and lost as well as not aggressively investigating the bringing the perpetrators of the terrorism act to justice. Findings show that Facebook users felt let down by the military. They felt that a military fortress in Nigeria having been invaded in such a manner by untrained bandits/terrorists soiled the reputation of Nigeria as a sovereign country and insults the sensibilities of Nigerians. They demanded that the military apologise to Nigerians and asked President Buhari to sack the Service Chiefs and the NDA leadership.
Findings from this study demonstrate the need for strategic use of social media during an online crisis. The ‘what would you do’ model (Yarchi et al., 2017) adopted by the Israeli military during wars is an example of how to use or adopt social media platforms to quell and diffuse online firestorms (Mochalova & Nanopoulos, 2014). Social media platforms when used strategically do not only generate significantly greater audience engagement during wars or attacks but also help the military to control the narratives as to what happened, the instigator, military actions and the definition of success. The Indian and Pakistani militaries strategically used social media platforms to control the narratives in the wake of the Pulwama attack in Kashmir (Hussain et al., 2021). Other militaries (such as Canadian, Russian, Ukrainian, and the United States of America (USA)) have been able to strategically use online platforms to de-legitimise their target country or group, list their grievances which legitimise the use of force, build ‘online warriors’, generate dialogues between the military and the public as well as to concoct a ‘causus belli’ (cause of war) to serve as a trigger for a war or military action (Ciuriak, 2022, p. 4; Gabel et al., 2020; Khan & Pratt, 2020; Mangat, 2018). While studies have shown how online platforms have been used to seek and receive help by a refugee from war-torn areas (Talabi et al., 2022), this study shows that failure to strategically use social media platforms to quell online firestorms by militaries adversely impact the military in the short, medium and long term. It causes reputational damage and unravels the belief and trust of the public.
The study illustrates that participating in an online firestorm is driven by a moral compass and responsibility as well as a desire for social change (Johnen et al., 2018). In the case of this study, more people started commenting their angst and disapprovals for the military after the Nigerian military failed to address the NDA attack and inform people what the military was doing to forestall any other invasion or attack in Nigeria. Such statements and information would have given Nigerians hope and feeling that the right thing was being done. However, the silence from the Nigerian military was damaging as it increased the online firestorm rather than containing it.
A cursory look at the comments and posts shows that Facebook users’ opinions and dispositions towards the Nigerian military became negative and disrespectful the longer it went without valuable information from the military. They were disappointed and felt that the military has been defeated. The study further illustrates that the Nigerian military failed to adopt the recommendation of Pfeffer et al. (2014) in ‘bursting’ their citizens filter bubbles. The Nigerian military did not inject a good amount of information into the firestorm space as a way of counteracting the negative online word of mouth. The counterinformation would have shown professionalism at the minimum and would have destabilised many Facebook users negative perceptions about the military due to the attack. These posts from the Nigerian military would have served as inoculations to the damaging videos and pictures of the NDA attack if strategically engaged (McGuire, 1961; Pfeffer et al., 2014) and would have counterbalanced the online space and reduced the propagation of the negative online word of mouth. As the Nigerian military remained silent and failed to provide updates to the Nigerian public, they got damaged reputationally as their trust reservoir with the people started dissipating. All these culminated in Nigeria's online public lambasting the Nigerian military for their missteps and weakness.
Like the argument that firestorms harm short- and long-term brand perceptions (Hansen et al., 2018), this study shows that while prior trust reservoir is important in eliminating short- and long-term damages to the brand perception, failure to act as was the case in Nigeria exacerbates the harm of online firestorms. The study uncovers a significant relationship between the Nigerian military's lack of inoculations (Facebook posts) and adverse comments as well as negative attitudes toward the Nigerian military by Nigerian Facebook users during the firestorms about the NDA terrorists’ attack. The study concludes that while a high reservoir of trust moderates the short-and long-term effects, inaction during an online firestorm aggravates the effects.
The analysis of the data provided has some drawbacks which should be considered regarding the validity of the study. Since the analysis of the posts and comments did not involve a detailed analysis of the soundness of the posts, it cannot be said with total assurance that the posts were not sent by bots or phony profiles. Based on studies, it is improbable to have a high volume of the Facebook posts or tweets from bots (Gabel et al., 2020). This improbable chance of having a high number of bots strengthens the result of this study. It should be considered that the data collected are sufficient and suitable for this research. Finally, this study uncovers the opportunities afforded to corporations and government agencies by online networks. These online media platforms provide an avenue for government departments and parastatals to engage the public on issues that may prove problematic. Such interactions, when strategically constructed help the government institutions such as the military, to control the narrative, provide instantaneous feedback to queries from members of the public and help build trust. This study illustrates that the Nigerian military failed to strategically engage with Facebook users in Nigeria and did not respond to questions from the Nigerian online public. This failure by the Nigerian military has deleterious consequences as the Nigerian military has seen their popularity and trust to wane amongst Nigerians particularly, the online Nigerian public.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
