Federal Government has urged Nigerians to be extra vigilant in view
of the worsening cases of fake news being spread by unscrupulous
persons, who are bent on destabilizing the polity and causing disunity
among the country’s various ethnic and religious groups.
In a statement issued in Abuja today, the Minister of
Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said over this weekend alone,
several major cases of fake news were recorded, each of them capable of
causing panic, triggering chaos or setting one group against the other.
He said a gory video of a blast that occurred many years ago is
being circulated along with the false news of a bomb blast in Abuja,
while news of a non-existent bomb blast in Lagos was also widely
circulated, forcing the police to promptly debunk the fake news.
Mohammed
also said the latest strategy being employed by the purveyors of fake
news is to attribute to top government officials improbable statements
that are capable of destabilizing the polity, causing tension and
threatening the country’s unity.
”This is why we are appealing to Nigerians not to ever engage in a
knee-jerk reaction to any news, and to subject every information to a
very serious scrutiny by checking with security agencies and government
spokespersons,” he said.
The Minister described the fake news phenomenon as ‘the scourge of our
times’ which will probably get worse in the months ahead, hence the need
for all Nigerians to be very vigilant so that fake news purveyors do
not succeed in their quest to sow the seeds of chaos and confusion.
He
also appealed to the traditional media, which has a reputation to
protect, to join the campaign against the purveyors of fake news,
especially because the websites of many reputable media organizations
are being parodied and used to spread false information in order to gain
some modicum of credibility.
”On our part, we will not relent until we have exposed those who are
behind this fake news phenomenon and brought them to justice,” Alhaji
Mohammed said.