Social Media Disinformation and National Security in Nigeria: A Critical Review of Digital Information Threats, Crisis Communication and Security Governance

Nigerian public debate increasingly treats false content on social media as a matter of national security.This review asks how far the evidence supports that framing.It draws on political communication, computational social science, crisis communication and security studies, and follows the problem from the spread of disinformation through public trust and crisis communication to the state's governance response.Amplification is the best-documented link: false content travels faster than accurate content, and in Nigeria it gains authority when radio presenters and partisan commentators repeat it.Evidence that disinformation causes violence is thinner.Nigerian accounts are mostly qualitative, and the strongest causal estimates come from cross-national data.On balance, disinformation looks like a threat multiplier acting on older ethno-religious, political and economic grievances.The review also finds that the state shapes the threat it claims to fight.Slow or evasive communication by security agencies leaves vacuums that rumour fills, and laws built on vague offences, together with the 2021 Twitter suspension, have weakened the trust on which official correction depends.The 2022 NITDA Code of Practice points towards platform co-regulation, though its enforcement is untested.A research agenda closes the paper.