The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has described the phenomenon of fake news as one of the greatest threat to the nation.
Speaking in Abuja at the seventh edition of the National Security Seminar, the minister listed four fake news which had been in circulation recently.
He said:
“Regrettably, fake news is circulated worldwide through the means of the social media and it travels faster.
“Only recently, we have to refute the fake news that Nigeria today is the most difficult place for Christians to live (1).
“There was also the fake report that the armed forces of Nigeria armed the Fulani herdsmen and instigate them to carry out attacks (2).
“All these news are unfounded, fake and has the capacity to set one religion or group against the other,’’ he said.
The minister said the most recent of such disinformation was the news of the alleged killing of some members of a pro-Biafra group, the Indigenous People of Biafra (3).
He also recalled the recent visit by two leaders of All Progressives Congress, Bola Tinubu and Bisi Akande to President Muhammadu Buhari in London which the champions of disinformation claimed it never happened (4).
He said similarly, it took the intervention of the US government to set the record straight through a release that its President, Donald Trump truly had a telephone conversation with President Buhari (5).
