Samoa agreement: We won’t take fake news lightly – Nigerian govt warns

The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, has warned that the federal government is ready to clamp down on disinformation and fake news in the country.

Idrid stated this while speaking at the National Press Centre, Abuja.

He vowed to lodge a formal complaint to NPAN Ombudsman against an Online media over series of uninvestigated publications against FG.

The Honourable Minister also said that the Federal Government would use every lawful means to seek redress in the court of law.

His words: “The Federal Government under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has maintained an open arm relationship with the media. It is in line with the philosophy of the President as an avowed democrat who spent a lifetime fighting for the entrenchment of democracy and human rights.

“This administration has remained very tolerant of media criticism and guaranteed citizens’ rights to freedom of expression. It is however disheartening that some elements are abusing this free environment guaranteed by the Government. We are alarmed by the level of reckless reporting and statements by some media organisations and individuals that border on national security and stability.

“While we sometimes view and treat those occasional reporting as part of media’s normal work, we have now seen a pattern that is difficult to be wished away as normal journalism.

“The insidious and inciting publications by an (Online Media) these past months have come across as nothing but a deliberate effort to brush the government with a tar. On many occasions we have restrained ourselves from believing that this was the case but the consistency of the jejune and mischievous publications leaves us with no option.

“In the aftermath of the coup in Niger Republic, this online media championed a jaundiced narrative that the Federal Government was driving the country into a war and twisted it with regional sentiment to cause disaffection. The same newspaper gave a banner headline to a baseless accusation that the Government was working on citing foreign military bases in the country. Neither this media nor originators of that imaginative allegation provided any shred of evidence.

“Then just two weeks ago, Daily Trust concocted and popularised a lie that the Federal Government had renamed the Murtala Mohammed Expressway in Abuja to Wole Soyinka Way. In all those instances all that the paper depended on were falsehood and hearsays. They also showed no remorse or the humility to recant.

“We however did not envisage that Daily Trust and people behind it could descend to the reckless level of attempting to set the country on fire by falsely accusing the government of signing a deal to promote LGBTQ. We found that despicable and wicked because the allegation is nowhere in the document signed.