Former Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, has accused the All-Progressives Congress (APC)-led federal government of launching a “multibillion-naira digital warfare initiative” aimed at manipulating public opinion.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter) titled “Digital Ambush: Inside the APC’s Multibillion Naira Plot to Silence Dissent Before 2027,” El-Rufai shared an article written by Mohammed Bello Doka. The article alleges that the initiative is disguised as a “media strategy” but is designed to “manipulate public perception, drown out opposition voices, and rewrite the story of their administration’s catastrophic economic and security record.”
According to the article shared by El-Rufai, the ruling party is using “algorithms, influencers, and a tsunami of bot-driven propaganda” to “silence dissent” ahead of the 2027 elections. The post claims the government recently hosted a “Progressive Digital Media Summit” in Abuja, bringing together content creators, influencers, and government media aides. These individuals are allegedly “paid and primed to flood the internet with strategic disinformation and narrative laundering.”
The article describes the initiative as a “chilling truth” where a “narrative machine” is being built to “sanitize every failed policy, deflect every criticism, and drown every cry for help in a deluge of hashtags and choreographed trends.”
An anonymous “former government insider” at the summit is quoted as saying that “2027 has already begun online” and that billions are being channeled through “covert media contracts,” “influencer retainerships,” and “ghost-operated accounts.” The goal, according to the post, is to overwhelm the public with “false hope and manufactured praise.”
The post concludes with a call to action for opposition voices to “urgently scale its digital communications, build firewalls of truth, train its own rapid response teams, and speak boldly before the noise becomes deafening.” The author argues that this is not just about politics, but about “reclaiming digital space from state-sponsored manipulation” and protecting “the soul of Nigeria’s democracy.”