The Katsina command of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps has engaged its personnel in two-day cyber security and digital literacy training.

Its commandant, Jamilu Indabawa, said the aim was to enhance their performance, especially in cyber resilience.

Mr Indabawa said the training came at the right time. He said the training was organised when the command redoubled its commitment to ensuring the state’s safety and security.

Mr Indabawa, who expressed the belief that all the resource persons were very good at the job, therefore, called on the personnel to pay attention to learn more.

He expressed confidence that whatever the resource persons would dish out would be useful to them, and in the end, the command would have every reason to celebrate.

The commandant expressed hope that, in the end, the beneficiaries would step down the training to their colleagues at various levels.

Mr Indabawa said that the exercise was part of his engagement and collaboration towards enhancing the capacity of the personnel in the state in terms of cyber awareness.

The Defence Headquarters (DHQ) reported the arrest of two skilled female terrorists responsible for ransom negotiations and the elimination of 152 Boko Haram and Islamic State West African Province (ISWAP) fighters in the past week. According to Major General Edward Buba, Director of Defence Media Operations, these women facilitated ransom deals for the release of kidnapped victims across northern Nigeria.

During the week under review, military operations also led to the arrest of 109 terrorists and the rescue of over 90 hostages. In addition, Joint Task Force troops in the South-South region intercepted petroleum products worth over N795 million, recovering stolen crude oil and refined diesel.

Buba further revealed that the military carried out successful strikes against two prominent terrorist commanders, targeting strongholds in Katsina and Kaduna states. Meanwhile, crude oil theft operations in Rivers State were crippled through air interdictions.

Chief of Army Staff Lt. Gen. Taoreed Lagbaja praised the efforts of the armed forces in ensuring national security and emphasized the importance of maintaining momentum to achieve complete victory over terrorist elements.

Telegram boss Pavel Durov said on Friday that the messaging app would tackle criticism of its content moderation and remove some features that had been abused for illegal activity.

Durov, who was last week placed under formal investigation in France in connection with the use of Telegram for crimes including fraud, money laundering and sharing images of child sex abuse, announced the move in a message to his 12.2 million subscribers on the platform.

“While 99.999 per cent of Telegram users have nothing to do with crime, the 0.001 per cent involved in illicit activities create a bad image for the entire platform, putting the interests of our almost billion users at risk,” the Russian-born tech entrepreneur wrote on Telegram.

“That’s why this year we are committed to turn moderation on Telegram from an area of criticism into one of praise.”

Durov said Telegram had disabled new media uploads to a standalone blogging tool “which seems to have been misused by anonymous actors”.

He said it had also removed a little-used People Nearby feature which “had issues with bots and scammers” and would instead showcase legitimate, verified business in the vicinity of users.

The changes are the first he has announced since being arrested last month in France and questioned for four days before being placed under formal investigation and released on bail.

His lawyer has said it was absurd to investigate Durov in connection with crimes committed by other people on the app.

In a previous post on Thursday, Durov said Telegram was not perfect. “But the claims in some media that Telegram is some sort of anarchic paradise are absolutely untrue,” he wrote. “We take down millions of harmful posts and channels every day.”