Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has revealed the multi-million naira social media project aimed at discredit the government of President Muhammadu Buhari, destabilize the polity and make the country ungovernable for the President.
”The campaign to discredit the government is a multi-million naira project and the people behind this string of hate speech, disinformation and fake news are not about to stop. In fact, they will become more vicious in the days, weeks and months ahead,” he said.
The Minister made these known at an extra-ordinary meeting of the National Council on Information (NCI), being held in Jos, the Plateau State capital, with theme: ”Hate Speeches, Disinformation, Fake News and National Unity.”.
Lai Mohammed said that the barrel of hate speeches going on is are being fuelled by the push for separatism as well as the rising cases of ethnic and religious disharmony, even as he warned that similar hate speeches and incitement to violence led genocide that left at least 800,000 people dead in Rwanda in 1994.
According to the minister, the worsening cases of hate speech in the country began from the period before the last general elections, adding that the then Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Muhammadu Buhari, was the target of a vicious campaign.
”Never in the history of electioneering campaign in Nigeria has such a quantum of hate speech 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 19 January 2017, during which he said he would have routine medical check-up, when these hate and fake news campaigners circulated the news that he has died.
“Between then and now, they have repeated similar fakes news times without number.” [myad]
