Nigeria’s Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, has disclosed that armed bandits and criminal networks operating across parts of the country are using sophisticated communications technology to avoid detection and frustrate security agencies’ efforts to monitor their activities.
Tijani said during a Friday night interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today that the methods used by these groups were “far more technical” than commonly understood, allowing them to mask their locations and coordinate activities with relative ease.
According to the minister, bandits are not relying on conventional networks. Instead, they route their calls so that they “bounce calls off multiple towers,” a tactic that obscures the signal’s origin and undermines efforts by telecommunications monitoring and security operatives to pinpoint them. “They were not using the normal towers; they bounce calls off multiple towers. That is why they enjoy living in areas that [are] unconnected,” Tijani explained.
He said this technological adaptation has persisted despite government efforts to tighten surveillance systems, including the mandatory linking of National Identification Numbers (NIN) to SIM cards aimed at reducing unregistered lines. The minister described these developments as a key reason behind the federal government’s recent push to expand network infrastructure in underserved regions.
“The reason why the president actually pushed us to invest in towers in those areas is that we realised that there was a special kind of technology that they [the bandits] were using to call,” Tijani said, underlining that enhanced connectivity would help reduce blind spots criminals currently exploit.
To counter these challenges, he noted government plans to upgrade Nigeria’s communications satellites so that surveillance and monitoring can be maintained even in places where terrestrial towers are weak or absent. “Because if our towers are not working, our satellites will work,” he added.
The minister’s comments come amid a broader national conversation on insecurity, as banditry and related attacks continue to plague parts of northern Nigeria — prompting calls for stronger technological and intelligence-driven responses from authorities.
