Last week, Nigeria’s Minister of Information
and Culture, Lai Mohammed delivered this
speech at the extra-ordinary meeting of the
National Council on Information that held in
Jos.
Read the full speech centered on combating
Fake news, media inciting violence and
national unity below…
This theme, HATE SPEECH, FAKE NEWS AND
NATIONAL UNITY, was well chosen to bring
to the fore the looming danger facing our
country from what has now become the
scourge of our time. Though I have
repeatedly called attention, at many fora, to
the dangers posed by the menace of the
now pervasive hate speech, disinformation
and fake news, no one gave the issue the
attention it deserves until it started
threatening the very foundation of our
national unity.
It was Gina Greenlee who said ‘’experience
is a master teacher, even if it is not our
own.’’ I am sure many here have heard or
read about how hate speech and incitement
to violence played a significant role in the
1994 genocide that left at least 800,000
people dead in Rwanda. Well, it is worth
rehashing here for the purpose of this
discourse.
Anti-Tutsi articles and cartoons in the
Kangura newspaper, as well as hate speech
and incitement to violence on the radio
station called RTLMC – Radio-Television
Libres des Mille Collines (Thousand Hills Free
Radio and Television) helped to set the stage
for that genocide. The station was set up by
hard-line Hutu extremists, and received the
backing of many rich and prominent people
in that country. Those who saw the danger
posed by the station called for it to be shut
down, but against the backdrop of freedom
of speech, such calls fell on deaf ears, until it
was too late. Some 23 years later, Rwanda is
yet to fully recover from the impact of the
genocide, triggered by hate speech and
senseless incitement to violence.
In Nigeria today, the hate being spewed on
radio stations across the country is so
alarming. If you tune into many radio
stations, you will be shocked by the things
being said, the careless incitement to
violence and the level of insensitivity to the
multi-religious, multi-ethnic nature of our
country. Unfortunately, even the hosts of
such radio programmes do little or nothing
to stop. Oftentimes, they are willing
collaborators of hate speech campaigners.
This must not be allowed to continue
because it is detrimental to the unity and
well-being of our country.
Disinformation and Fake News: Let me use
my own personal experiences to make these
more vivid. On Wednesday, 26 April 2017,
after the weekly Federal Executive Council
(FEC) meeting, I briefed State House
Correspondents on what transpired 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. The
reporting generated a lot of uproar, until I
issued a rebuttal. This is a clear case of
disinformation – which is defined as false
information deliberately spread to deceive
the people.
The following month, after I had briefed
State House Correspondents on the
proceedings of another Council meeting,
one newspaper’s headline went thus: ‘’We
do not know who will sign the 2017 budget
– Lai Mohammed.’’ This is at variance with
what I said. When I was asked a question
relating to the signing of the 2017 budget,
my exact words were: ‘’When it is
transmitted to the Presidency, a decision will
be taken.’’ The reporting is another clear
case of disinformation.
