Nigeria: Fake News On the Prowl

20 February 2018

President Donald Trump of the United States of America it was who popularised the advent of fake news with his (in) famous fake news awards for year 2017. In truth the fake news phenomenon gained traction during the 2016 US presidential election with its related drama when Russia was accused of having allegedly influenced its outcome through pushing out of a series of fake news in the social media meant to sway voters. Till-date the relevant American institutions are still investigating those claims and it is one of the allegations hanging ominously on Trump's neck like the sword of Damocles. Fake news reports are associated more with the social, online media. But these days even the conservative, once respected traditional media are also falling prey to it. For, often we hear of people countering some reports we had all swallowed hook, line and sinker. Alas the bug of fake news has also caught up with our media. The bottom-line is that anybody reading through our newspapers would have to put on his/her thinking cap, read between the lines to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff, to sift out what is true and what is false.

Here are samples of a few fake news reports in our country in recent times: "Senator Jang denies saying Hausa/Fulani will never rule Nigeria again". Any informed, unprejudiced and thinking person ought to realise or better said, ought to have doubts about the initial report in one Zuma Times quoting a senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as having said that a "Hausa/Fulani man will never rule Nigeria again". For, Senator Jonah Jang who represents Plateau North in the National Assembly being a politician, a governor and an arewa man is very well aware that elections are a game of numbers. It does not lie with him to decree by fiat that a Fulani man will never step foot into the Aso Rock villa again as even the votes in the length and breadth of his state represent a small percentage of the total votes required nationwide to elect a Nigerian president. Suppose the Zuma Times story was true, the unbiased reader would consider it as a foolish remark by a senator, former governor and northerner for that matter.

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