The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has said the growing cases of hate speech, disinformation and fake news in the country are being orchestrated by antagonists and their sponsors to discredit the government, destabilise the polity and make the country ungovernable.
The minister made the statement at the Extraordinary Meeting of the National Council on Information in Jos, Plateau State, on Thursday.
The theme of the event was: Hate Speeches, Disinformation, Fake News and National Unity.
“The campaign (to discredit the government) is a multi-million naira project and the people behind this string of hate speeches, disinformation and fake news are not about to stop. In fact, they will become more vicious in the days, weeks and months ahead,’’ Mohammed said.
The minister, in a statement by his Media Aide, Mr. Segun Adeyemi, in Abuja on Friday, blamed the resurgent push for separatism as well as the rising cases of ethnic and religious disharmony on “hate speeches, as well as disinformation and fake news campaign.’’
He also warned that hate speeches and incitements to violence set the stage for the genocide that left at least 800,000 people dead in Rwanda in 1994.
He traced the worsening cases of hate speech in the country to the period leading to the last general elections, identifying the then presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Muhammadu Buhari, as the target of a vicious campaign.
He said, ‘’Never in the history of electioneering in Nigeria has such a quantum of hate speeches been directed at any candidate.
“This did not stop, even when he won the election and became President. For instance, the President had hardly left Nigeria for his vacation in London on January 19, 2017, during which he said he would have routine medical check-up, when these hate and fake news campaigners circulated the news that he had died. Between then and now, they had repeated similar fake news many times.’’
He cited three instances of disinformation and fake news which he said were targeted at him, including when he was quoted as saying that the government did not know who would sign the 2017 budget.
According to the minister, what he said was that “when the budget is transmitted to the Presidency, a decision will be taken.”
Citing other instances, Mohammed said, “On Wednesday, April 26, 2017, after the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting, I briefed the State House correspondents on what happened at the meeting.
“I said, among others, that President Muhammadu Buhari did not preside over the day’s meeting because he decided to work from home that day.
“In reporting my briefing, one of the correspondents quoted me as saying the President would work from home henceforth, rather than on that day only.
“Also in May 2017, I travelled to China on (an) official assignment. I had just arrived in that country, after a long flight, when I started receiving calls from Nigeria, seeking my reaction to a story making the rounds and quoting me as saying that though President Muhammadu Buhari was in a London hospital, he was using Made-in-Nigeria drugs.
“I purportedly made the comment in an interview with Channels Television, after the Federal Government’s launch of the Made-in-Nigeria campaign in Abuja a few days earlier.
“At first, I chose to ignore the story, saying Nigerians would easily see the folly of it. But the phone calls from Nigeria became more frequent and more intense, to such an extent that they could no longer be ignored.
“I had to put a call through to Mr. John Momoh, and Channels Television promptly issued a rebuttal, saying it neither interviewed me nor carried any such story.’’
On the way forward, he said Nigerians must say no to hate speeches and “boycott any medium that is used to spew hate” or that engages in disinformation and fake news.
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