Barely two months to the general elections,
fake news has been employed by some supporters of the ruling All
Progressives Congress (APC) and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP) as a campaign strategy to discredit one another.

It’s against this background that BBC World
Service brought together stakeholders to a one-day conference tagged:
“Nigeria 2019: Countering Fake News” to seek solutions to this problem
ahead of the general elections.

Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, a
panelist at the event which took place on Wednesday, January 9, 2019,
described fake news as deliberate, destructive and a likely cause of a
World War 3.

Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, speaks on the dangers of fake news.

“I’ve said this before that fake news may cause World War III and the fake news will be started by a Nigerian,” Soyinka declared causing mixed reactions in the audience.

A young lady who sat by my left-hand-side whispered: “That is a very serious statement. Very serious,” she emphasised.

“But, fake news is serious, too. Very serious,” replied a tall, dark man by her side as she nodded in affirmation.

As calm is returned to the Congress Hall, venue of the event, Soyinka continued: “I’ve been killed several times on the internet; I actually enjoy reading my own obituary.

“Those who create fake news are
sick in the head and they are also cowards because they lack the
conviction of their own that beliefs and so they transfer to others what
they are thinking.”

The Nobel laureate called for the criminalization of fake news as means of reducing the menace.

“We need to accept the fact that fake news
is real and it should be treated as a crime. There are already existing
laws to prosecute offenders of fake news in the country,” he added.

Osinbajo on fake news

In his keynote address, Vice President, Yemi
Osinbajo, recalled a recent incident where fake news almost caused him
marital discord.

 Vice President, Yemj Osinbajo, says fake photo of him and strippers almost got him in trouble with his wife, Dolapo.

“I have been one of the targets of fake news,” Osinbajo began. “It
can also sometimes cause you marital peace. I got a call from my wife
about three or four weeks ago and she said Yemi what are you doing with
strippers and I said what do you mean by strippers? So, I read a story
in a famous blog that said, ‘Osinbajo caught with strippers’.

“And
there was a photograph of me sitting between two perfectly clothed
ladies but underneath this picture, the same ladies were not wearing
much.

“In fact-checking the photographs with
these two ladies at an entertainment event were taken when they were
perfectly clothed but by the time the story was put out, it was as
though I had taken a photo with them at the time they were not clothed
at all.

“As it turns out, I wasn’t in the picture
of where they were not wearing clothes but just the caption, the stories
and all that gave the impression that here I was in the company of
these ladies at a point when they were doing their business. I think the
capacity of fake news to cause great harm is not in doubt at all,” he stated.

Fake news hit INEC

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has not been left out.

Just recently, the PDP spokesman, Kola Ologbodiyan, raised an alarm that the electoral body had “appointed President Muhammadu Buhari’s niece, Amina Zakari, to announce results of the 2019 presidential elections”.

Amina Zakari

But, INEC’s national commissioner, Festus
Okoye, said Zakari’s role as head of the collection center committee has
nothing to do with actual collation of votes.

He noted that INEC would ensure timely release
of election results in order to counter unverifiable figures that may
get into the public space by purveyors of fake news.

Countering fake news

The President of the Nigerian Guild of Editors and Editor-in-Chief of the New Telegraph newspaper, Funke Egbemode, urged journalists to ensure that stories and claims are verified before publishing.

Similarly, the founder of Bella Naija, Uche Pedro, urged the authorities to employ technology in the dissemination of information to the public.

Paying tribute to Nigeria’s “vibrant” national and regional media, the Director of BBC World Service Group, Jamie Angus, revealed plans by his organisation to counter fake news in Nigeria, especially during the elections.

Director, BBC World Service Group, Jamie Angus, speaking at the ‘Beyond Fake News’ conference.

“As the internet becomes ever more accessible
with cheap smart phones and free data, and as free Apps that can mimic
mouths, voices and facial expressions become more sophisticated and
freely available …the challenge will grow; fakes will become harder to
spot, the ‘cloning of President Buhari’ is just a taster of what
armchair deep fakers will be able to achieve,” he said.

“The BBC will be doing fact checking around
claims made during the election campaign. Our African digital team have
been learning about specialist data journalism techniques, in order to
deliver fact checks on health, education and the economy.

“A lot of what we can do to fight fake news
is to use the basic tools of journalism – check the story, check the
facts, check the source,” he added.

Angus noted that the recent expansion of BBC
West Africa was to cater for the information needs of Nigerians — its
largest audience outside of United States of America and the United
Kingdom.

Head of BBC West Africa Languages, Oluwatoyosi Ogunseye,
delivering the welcome address at the ‘Beyond Fake News’ conference.

Earlier, the head of BBC Africa Languages,
Oluwatoyosi Ogunseye, said the global media organization would be
deploying fifty reporters to all the states in Nigeria for the election
coverage.

“For this election, the BBC will have about
50 reporters in Nigeria. There will be minimum of one BBC reporter per
state, with some states having more than two reporters,” she announced.

This, according to her, would ensure that news
on the elections get to its over 34 million readers, listeners and
viewers across the globe in good time thereby reducing the spread of
false information.

The media organisation would also be engaging
10 governorship aspirants across selected states in a debate from
Thursday, January 10, 2019.