The International Center for Investigative Reporting, which chose its participants from print, internet, and broadcast media spanning the six geo-political zones of the country, organised the three-day workshop that took place in Abuja.
In highlighting the significance of combating misinformation, fake news, and disinformation on Thursday, First Secretary of Political Affairs for the German Embassy in Nigeria, Mathias Dold, stated that “according to the 2023 EU election report influential members of big parties regularly spread unverified or even false information targeting the opponents while critical reporting was occasionally also referred to as fake news by some political actors. A situation where the information was already murky got worse as a result.
“This abundance of false information is made even more harmful when it contains information about religion, ethnicity, or other forms of negative identity and is used to stir up disputes among various groups, which can occasionally result in violence.
Bold further revealed that risky tendencies of false information and fake news on the coup in Niger exist in the Nigerian context.
“Disinformation, fake news, is not only dangerous in the Nigerian context. In the recent coup de etat in Niger, we saw the effects of misinformation especially about Westerns suspecting French involvement, ECOWAS, saw the narrative was been coerced to start a war with Niger by France and the government of President Bola Tinubu was but a perfect government of the west.
“I don’t need to tell you that this is based on the fact that the ECOWAS made the decisions entirely on its own but this narrative is strange from the position of the junta, the results of which we currently see with the rising level of violence in the country.
“This demonstrates the invaluable contribution of objective media to democracy. Nigeria rightly prides itself in having an open, pluralistic, and critical media landscape,” he said.
The Executive Director of ICIR, Mr Dayo Aiyetan, earlier stressed the prevalence of false information and the critical necessity to stop it from spreading in his remarks.
Editor of Fact Check Hub, Opeyemi Kehinde, spoke on his behalf and underlined how difficult it is to discover all types of false information.
“Building the capacity of media professionals to counter misinformation and disinformation narratives via their various platforms is key to attaining the goal of The ICIR to encourage the public to imbibe the culture of fact-checking,” he said.
