By Victor Adeoti
An NGO, Centre For Democracy and Development (CDD), has described fake news as a threat to the nation’s democracy and must be checked.
The Senior Programme Officer of the organisation, Austin Aigbe said this at a 3-day training for representatives of the Media, Security Agencies, Civil Society Organisation, National Orientation Agency (NOA) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), on Thursday in Osogbo.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the training has as its theme “Countering Mis/Disinformation in Nigeria Elections”.
Aigbe said that the information age which ought to be a blessing was now almost a curse due to the spread of fake news.
He said that false information through various channels including social media platforms provided the cheapest and quickest ways to spread it.
According to him, disinformation campaign may start on social media platforms and private messenger application such as WhatsApp.
“But they penetrate into offline spaces by influencing the outputs and programmes by conventional media through well-established rumour networks”.
Aigbe said that disinformation exacerbates existing ethno-religious divisions and builds on long tensions that pre-date the internet.
He said in Nigeria, misinformation distorts reality and changes how people perceive religion and ethnicity and turned ethnicity and religion against each other.
“The increasing prevalence of misinformation and disinformation across traditional and new media sphere has further deepened public anxiety.
“And inter group tension about the mounting insecurity and the state responses to it,” he said.
He, however, said that in order to identify fake news and discard it immediately, Nigerians should be conscious and actively investigate what they read and hear.
He said they should also use news sources that are accountable for their content and follow journalistic ethics and standards.
Aigbe also said that it was important to recognise one’s biases and compensate for them.
“The country is fragmented along religious and ethnic lines and disinformation is subtly breaking down the fabrics of her democratic future.
“We must all rise against the spread of fake news to save our democracy,” he said.
Aigbe said CDD fact checking was based around countering claims that are damaging to the electoral process and the integrity of democracy.
He said as the Osun election was coming closer as well as the 2023 general elections, there was possibility of spread of fake news.
He said media practitioners as well as Nigerians must engage in fact checking by paying details to all available information
He said CDD would deploy 300 observers to monitor the Osun governorship election across the 30 local government areas in the state. (NAN)