CSO Raises the Alarm over Plan to Disrupt Peace in Nigeria
Hammed Shittu in Ilorin
A civil society organization (CSO), the Foundation for Peace Professionals (FPP) has raised alarm over the growing number of professional fake news syndicates that could instigate mass discontent against the nation.
The foundation however called on the federal government to beef up its security networks to thwart the operations of the professional syndicates in order to sustain peace in the country.
A statement that was issued in Ilorin and signed by the Executive Director of the FPP, Mr. Abdulrazaq Hamzat, said that “the level of fake news in Nigeria is huge and it appeared that in the past few years, there’s organszed syndicate, trained to create content, impersonating legitimate bodies to perpetrate certain narrative in order to cause chaos in Nigeria.”
Hamzat explained that during the just concluded presidential election in Nigeria, several fake documents and reports were ascribed to legitimate bodies, both local and international, have been circulated on the social media in an attempt to delegitimise the election.
He said: “Our investigation reveals that most of these reports were fake and fabricated, but they are being pushed all over the social media to convince the populace about their truthfulness, thereby creating fatal ground for subversive actions.”
He explained that some media organisations have also been misled by these reports and it has become more a regular occurrence in Nigeria.
“Few moments ago, the European Union debunked one of such reports that has been widely circulated in its name, which confirmed the findings of PeacePro, but many more of such contents are in circulation, with the impersonated organisations unaware of the reports ascribed to them.”
Hamzat maintained that “the impersonation of legitimate organisations to peddle misleading narrative on social media is a propaganda tool to convince the populace wrongly over certain claims and we believe this actions were deliberately being carried out by organised syndicates to gradually undermine the country in the mind of its citizens, which is often a prelude to a bigger action by organised none state actors”.
The foundation, therefore, called on the federal government to quickly pay attention to the issue beyond the rhetoric of condemning fake news or threatening perpetrators with punishment, to digging deep to understand the operations of the syndicate organisation, motivation and sponsors.
“We are in the information age, where wars are fought in the digital space to capture minds, to instill hate and anger or motivate people into subversive actions through false narrative to disrupt peace and security of nations” Hamzat concluded.
