Minister of Information and culture, Lai Mohammed and the Buhari-led Federal Government have been slammed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with claims that they are the purveyor of fake news in Nigeria.
PDP also advised the government to seek forgiveness from Nigerians instead of blaming them for the escalation of fake news in the country.
”Nigerians are aware that the phenomenon of fake news exploded to the current frightening proportion in Nigeria due to the desperation of the APC, whose spokespersons deliberately promoted outright lies, hate speech, insults and threats of violence as tools to gain political power, during the run-up to the 2015 general elections.
The APC and its officials literarily fouled our media space by deliberately entrenching falsehood, fabrications, uncouth language and abuses as “acceptable’ modes of engagement, particularly in the social media.
The APC and the Buhari Federal Government misled and have been misleading the media and the public by stating outright lies, half truths and fabrications in their statements and claims about governance, individuals and the opposition. Nigerians are witnesses to several false performance claims by the APC-led Federal Government including phony political cumming economic recovery and infrastructure development claims, which they project to be factual, even when the reality points to the contrary.
Recently, the APC purveyed fake news in its declaration of President Buhari as winner of APC presidential primary with fictitious 14.8 million votes, even when there was no contest and no ballot cast. The deliberate deployment of fake news by the APC in its attempt to smear the PDP and its members, ended up demarketing our country in the international arena and eroded the confidence the world had on our markets and business concerns, resulting in the current dearth of investments, collapse of businesses, job losses and drop in national productivity.
The APC should be remorseful and realize that their use of fake news has devastated our economic, political and social development by triggering fear, public panic and uncertainty; disrupting production, distribution and marketing chains and weakening foreign and local investors’ confidence in our system.
The PDP therefore counsels the Minister of Information and Culture, the Buhari Presidency and the APC to immediately apologize to Nigerians for purveying fake news and discontinue their shameless enterprise of beguiling the unsuspecting public with impunity.
Finally, the PDP cautions Nigerians to be wary of the APC and identified beguilers in the Buhari administration who have have been fully mobilized to commence the release of fictional and false performance indices with a view to swaying Nigerians ahead of 2019 general elections.”