The Minister of
Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has accused the opposition of
resorting to the use of fake news as a campaign tool against the President Muhammadu Buhari's administration ahead of the 2019 general elections, reports ITRealms.
The Minister made the
remarks in Abuja on Monday when he visited the corporate headquarters of the
Authority Newspapers to kick-start the media tour in furtherance of the
campaign against fake news, which was recently launched by the federal
government.
He said because the
Buhari Administration is performing well, the political opposition believed
that the best way to de-market the administration is by latching on to fake
news to create religious and ethnic disharmony and throw the country into
turmoil.
“With the Buhari
Administration delivering on its promises to fight corruption, build the
nation's economy and tackle insecurity, the opposition has realized it will not
make any impact if it takes on the Administration on that turf. So, it has
decided to take the easy route, which is to use fake news and hate speech to
de-market the Administration, pitch Christians against Muslims and one ethnic
group against another,” he said.
Alhaji Mohammed said
the opposition has thrown caution to the wind in its futile attempt to divide
Nigeria along ethnic and religious lines by using fake news to blame all the
killings in a certain part of the country on herdsmen, ignoring the bands of
deadly militia groups that are being sponsored by unscrupulous people to kill innocent
people and put the nation on edge.
He cited the example
of how the opposition is distorting the fact that the clashes between the
farmers and herders are being aggravated by climate change - which has
heightened the contest for scarce natural resources like water and land - as
well as demographic pressure.
The Minister said the
morbid fear the opposition harbors that when he is re-elected in 2019,
President Buhari will consolidate on the fight against corruption, has thrown
the opposition camp into confusion, hence the frenzy with which they fabricate
and publish fake news in order to cast the government in bad light.
“Many politicians know
that the only way to distract this government is to spread fake news and they
are being very selfish and they have amassed so much wealth that they can
continue to sponsor fake news at a very dangerous level for as long as they
want.
“Many of them have
this morbid fear of the President being re-elected because they know that in
his second term, the war against corruption will start yielding fruits. There
are so many cases in court today and they are just praying and doing everything
to distract the government so that their cases will be scuttled,” he stated.
Alhaji Mohammed said
that for the first time in the history of Nigeria, there is a re distribution
of the nation's wealth from a few to the generality of the public
He said the
Administration's Social Investment Programme is providing one meal a day for
8.5 million pupils across 23 states; the Conditional Cash Transfer is
empowering 400,000 families with N5,000 every month, the Government Enterprises
and Empowerment Programme is making available loans to artisans and craftsmen
as well as market women while the N-Power Programme has provided employment for
over 200,000 unemployed graduates.
The Minister commended
the Authority Newspapers for being the first media outlet to write an Editorial
in support of the campaign against fake news, saying he chose to kick-start the
media tour with the newspaper in appreciation of their efforts.
Ayo Midele/GEE
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