Dr Isa Ali Pantami, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy has said that Nigerians fall victim to insecurity because of the information they share on social media.
The Minister wondered why Nigerians share photos of what they eat, where they live, where they work and some other vital information about their personal life on social media, as he spoke during the 29th convocation lecture of the Federal University of Technology, Minna.
Pantami stated that most Nigerians don’t know the evil associated with sharing such information on social media.
He said “Some people when you visit their social media platform for one week, you’ll be able to know their State. You’ll be able to know where they live in Niger state or in Abuja. You will be able to know where they travelled. You will be able to know the mosque or church they attend every week. With this, you will be able to know the total number of their children, you will be able to know where they work. In fact, you will be able to see the number of their ticket while travelling from Abuja to Lagos. Whatever you need, you will get it there. Some of them go to the extent of even posting their ID card, or driver’s license, or even their data page for passports. Why? Because we don’t respect our personal data. Whenever you collect data, that data is very important and that is why even data about your personal life, should something that is important to you, but today we don’t understand that. Today, there are so many experts in the world, so many underground experts in the world that you don’t even need to tell them about. You don’t need to give them any data. Tell them that I need more information about this guy. They will go through his Twitter, through his Facebook, identify his movement, what he has been doing, where he works. With this, within a day or 24 hours, they will produce a comprehensive report about that personality for you because we don’t have anything that is hidden. Whatever we do, it is there. Some people reach the external people posting the picture of their lunch or dinner on social media. It is very common, sometimes, exposing our kids that are not up to five years of age to the dangers of this life. You will see him snapping a picture with his kids and posting on social media without even knowing the implication.”