Okpanachi Elvis Sunday, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints living in Nigeria, told Human Events that many of the Islamic terrorists in Nigeria “post openly on social media” sharing content such as the “money for ransom they collected from their victims.”
“They have TikToks, some of these bandits have TikToks. They do TikTok and all of that. You see them with their guns,” Sunday told HE. Various terror groups that have terrorized Christians in Nigeria and that terrorism has been taking place for years, he revealed.
When asked further about the terrorists posting on the social media platform, he said that many will comment on the videos, with some criticism, but that the terrorists “also have fans” in Nigeria that praise the videos posted to the platform.
When asked about what kind of videos the terrorists use for content, he added, “You see them post to their guns. You see them post their money.”
Sunday also recounted a time when a terror group called the “Fulani Herdsman” came through his community while he slept in 2023. “I was just sleeping in my room. My brother was staying with me. All of a sudden, we started [hearing] gunshot in the area.”
He recounted that the group armed with AK-47s knocked on the home where he and his brother slept. However, no lights were on in the house.
“They knock, they knock, the knock, and nobody answered," he said, adding "They spoke. I heard them” speak in their language “and they left," perhaps thinking that nobody was in the home. "That's why I said I escaped kidnapping, because if they knew I was inside and my brother was inside, it to be very easy for them to get us that day."
15 people, Sunday said, were kidnapped that early morning where he lived “including the son of the traditional ruler” of the community.
Sunday also told HE about how but the government has downplayed the atrocities, with state-controlled media reporting lower death counts. “For instance, if the Boko Haram raids a community and killed 400 people, maybe you hear on the media that 40 people were killed in social states in Nigeria so they don't report actual figures.”
He added that from what he has seen, government controlled media entities will “suppress these numbers” and not allow for “media access to what has happened” and have tried to characterize the attacks, not as being perpetrated by Islamic terrorists, but that infighting has broken out in farming communities that led to the mass deaths.
Other reporting backs up what Sunday told HE regarding social media use from the terrorists on TikTok. Africa Defense Forum (ADF) published a report in June that said terror groups Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) have both been using the social media platform to spread propaganda to others for recruiting, financing, as well as communication and will often use the live features on TikTok to hold sessions with self-declared terrorists in Boko Haram.
In 2024, a Nigerian terrorist flaunted ransom money from a hideout on TikTok, according to Sahara Reporters. The user, which appears to be removed from the platform in November 2025, had the handle @sarkinyaki34f and the account had 7,893 followers and 27,700 likes.
The reported video displayed footage of “terrorists jubilantly counting loot and enjoying music, basking in the financial gains of their harmful exploits in Nigeria,” the outlet stated.
Screenshots of the money in the video being displayed, source: Sahara Reporters
President Donald Trump has now said if the mass killings of Christians in Nigeria are not put to a stop by the government, the US will "immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, 'guns-a-blazing,' to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities."
