By Chimezie Godfrey
In furtherance of its effort to ensure violent-free and credible general elections, the National Orientation Agency (NOA) has commenced a nationwide sensitization campaign against fake news and hate speech.
Speaking during the kick-off of the motorized campaign at the NOA Headquarters, Abuja on Thursday, the Director of Special Duties and State Operations, David Akoji, said the Agency has closely monitored the negative impact of disinformation and misinformation on the perception of the general public.
Akoji who noted that these vices would also negatively impact candidates that are running for elective offices, stressed the need for urgent intervention to ensure that come Saturday the presidential election would be violent-free, peaceful and credible, and also that such would be maintained during the other elections.
He therefore urged the general public not to accept everything they read on the social media but that they should fact check, and ask questions to verify their authenticity before disseminating them.
He said,”We have been monitoring the social media space, we have seen the effect and impact that disinformation and misinformation is playing in building perception of the members of the public as we draw close to the general elections.
“This disinformation sometimes comes inform of deep fake videos that make people to be saying things that really they did not say by way of mal-information, harvesting videos that comes from way back in the past and then contextualizing them in the present and making people say that actually are not saying in the present. And all of these is feeding into a kind of perception that people are having about various candidates who have offer for various level of elections.
“We have also seen that some of these disinformation has the capacity to instigate violence and hate. The response that the National Orientation Agency has done to tackle this unwholesome situation is initially to build capacity of diverse members of the public, and we have done this in eight classes so far.
“So as we on the eve of the elections now, we are going on the street on motorized sticker campaign to raise awareness of the enlarged public on the fact that they don’t have to accept everything they read in the social media hook line and sinker, that they should stop reflect and fact check, and ask questions.
“There are several sources which you can ask questions to authenticate the truth or otherwise of whatever you see on the social media before you start sharing widely. And you know because of the advent of digital media the speed at which information travels is unimaginable these days. You drop one wrong message and it goes viral within minutes.
“So, it becomes extremely important for us to sensitize the public and to say look, do not accept what you see before you have fact checked, pause, verify, check, ask questions, interrogate the intend of those who are putting out those messages. And is also that at the end of the day we can have peaceful general elections that violent free, and whose outcomes and result will be accepted generally by the electorate and members of the public.
Akoji said the campaign was being conducted simultaneously across the country.
“So, we are going this morning and we will continue to go, events like this is ahppenjng across the country, in various States and local governments as part of National Orientation Agency effort in doing sensitization, orientation, and advocacy in the build up to the general elections, so as to ensure that we have peaceful and credible general elections,” he said
