With Nigerians not backing down on protests for the reform of the police force and total disbandment of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), there are speculations that the government might shut down the internet.
Six days ago, a video of a fatal police shooting of a Nigerian man, sparked outrage and reignited a public call for the total dissolution of the controversial police unit in the country.
The video caused large numbers of Nigerians including celebrities, politicians, and activists calling for justice using hashtags such as #WarOnSars, #EndSars, and #SarsAlert #SARSMUSTEND.
With celebrities adding their voice to the #EndSARS campaign, it jumped to the top of the global trend on Twitter and drew international support from celebrities and soccer stars like Kanye West, Trey Songs, Mesut Ozil and Marcus Rashford.
READ ALSO: Twitter creates #EndSARS emoji in solidarity of protest
But there are now speculations that the Nigerian government may shut the protesters up by shutting down the internet since the surreptitious move to divide the protesters have failed.
Active protesters on and off social media have said unknown numbers have been calling to threaten them to back off.
In a related development, the official Twitter handle of National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) has been hacked and allegedly taken over by decentralised international ‘hacktivist’ group “Anonymous”.
The Nation checks revealed activities on NBC’s Twitter handle page were tweets and retweets of the #EndSARS protests/campaign against police brutality.
The group after the take-over tweeted: “We #Anonymous are out to expose government’s secrets & dirty files Put an #ENDTOPOLICEBRUTALITY #Twitterdown #NBChacked”.
Earlier this week, the decentralised international ‘hacktivist’ group claimed to have hacked several government databases, including one which contains names and contacts of operatives of the now-defunct Special Anti-robbery Squad (SARS).
Anonymous which was formed in 2003 is a decentralised group of anonymous hackers widely known for carrying out anonymous cyberattacks against governments and government agencies.
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