Politics

Opposition using fake news as campaign tool against Buhari – Lai Mohammed

Published

6 years ago

August 7, 2018

The Federal Government has accused the opposition of resorting to the use of fake news as a campaign tool against the Buhari administration ahead of the 2019 general elections.The Minister of Information and Culture , Alhaji Lai Mohammed , made the allegation in Abuja on Monday , when he visited the corporate headquarters of the Authority Newspapers to kick -start the media tour in furtherance of the campaign against fake news , which was recently launched by the Federal Government .

He said because the Buhari administration was performing well , the political opposition believed that the best way to whittle down the popularity of the administration was by latching on to fake news to create religious and ethnic disharmony and throw the country into turmoil .

He said , “ With the Buhari administration delivering on its promises to fight corruption , build the nation’ s economy and tackle insecurity, the opposition has realised it will not make any impact if it takes on the administration on that turf .

“ So , it has decided to take the easy route , which is to use fake news and hate speech to whittle down the popularity of the administration , pit Christians against Muslims and one ethnic group against another . ”

Mohammed said the opposition had thrown caution to the wind in its futile attempt to divide Nigeria along ethnic and religious lines by using fake news to blame all the killings in a certain part of the country on herdsmen , ignoring the bands of deadly militia groups that were being sponsored by unscrupulous people to kill innocent citizens and put the nation on the edge .

He cited the example of how the opposition was allegedly distorting the fact that the clashes between the farmers and herders were being aggravated by climate change , which he said had heightened the contest for scarce natural resources like water and land — as well as demographic pressure .

He said , “ Many politicians know that the only way to distract this government is to spread fake news and they are being very selfish and they have amassed so much wealth that they can continue to sponsor fake news at a very dangerous level for as long as they want .

“ Many of them have this morbid fear of the President being re – elected because they know that in his second term , the war against corruption will start yielding fruits .

“ There are so many cases in court today and they are just praying and doing everything to distract the government so that their cases will be scuttled . ”