Lai: Fake news poses more threat than militancy

Lai Mohammed, minister of information and culture, says the phenomenon of fake news poses more threat to the nation than insurgency and militancy.

Speaking on Monday during the seventh edition of the national security seminar in Abuja, Mohammed said fake news propagated majorly by the social media “is so serious that it threatened to break the country rapidly even more than insurgency’’.

He said to consolidate on the “defeat of the Boko Haram insurgents”, the armed forces should give special attention to its communication and information dissemination strategy.

“We must pay adequate attention to communication strategy and have our people who will be very active also on the social media,” he said.

“It is a front that has been largely neglected which we must now pay special and adequate attention to.

“Regrettably, fake news is circulated worldwide through the means of the social media and it travels faster.

“Only recently, we had to refute the fake news that Nigeria today is the most difficult place for Christians to live. There was also the fake report that the armed forces of Nigeria armed the Fulani herdsmen and instigated them to carry out attacks.

“All these news are unfounded, fake and has the capacity to set one religion or group against the other.”

The minister said the most recent of such disinformation was the news of alleged killing of some members of a pro-Biafra group, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).

Mohammed said the allegation was false, malicious and intended to set the country on fire.

He also said the “champions of disinformation” claimed that two leaders of All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu and Bisi Akande did not visit President Muhammadu Buhari in London.

Mohammed added that it took the intervention of the US government to set the record straight through a release that President Donald Trump truly had a telephone conversation with Buhari.