Making phone calls close to military checkpoints is not advisable, a senior Nigerian military official said on Monday.

“It is a security measure for when you are approaching a checkpoint,” he said, “you don’t make phone calls,” said Major-General Usman Mohammed, Nigerian Army’s head of Civil-Military Affairs said on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Monday.

“The tendency is that if you are making a phone call, you might be communicating with some bad guys. Or you may use that particular device to set up some certain devices.
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Mohammed said the rule is not peculiar to Nigeria.

“It is everywhere; people who have traveled abroad know that you don’t make phone calls when approaching a checkpoint.”

Nigeria’s internal security has been under pressure for most of the decade, with Boko Haram insurgency, farmers-herders clashes, kidnapping and violent robberies all stretching the country’s security agencies.

The country was ranked as the third country most impacted by terrorism on the 2019 Global Terrorism Index.
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