By Chibuike Nwabuko
Abuja (Sundiata Post) – Ahead of the 2023 general election, the National Orientation Agency (NOA) has organised motorised sticker campaign and sensitization across Nigeria on dangers of fake news and hate speech and how to curb them.
The Director, Special Duties and State Operations at the NOA, Mr. David Akoga who disclosed this on Thursday while addressing the press before the kick off of the sensitization in Abuja, said the same program is going on simultaneously across the 36 states of the federation.
Akoge noted that disinformation and misinformation had played a negative role in building perception of the members of the public as the general elections draw closer.
In his words: “We at the agency have been monitoring the social media space and we have seen the effects and impacts that disinformation and misinformation played in building perception of the members of the public as we draw close to the general elections and that such perception so created has the capacity to instigate violence and hate.
According to him, disinformation sometimes comes in form of deep fake videos that will make people say things that they did not really say by way of malinformation, harvesting videos that come from way back in the past and then contextualising them in the present, making people say things that they actually are not saying in the present. And all of these is eating into the kind of perception that people are having about various candidates who are on offer for various levels of elections.
“We have also seen that some of these disinformation has the capacity to instigate violence and hate”. He therefore called on Nigerians not to accept everything they see hook, line and sinker but rather to pulse, reflect and fact-check and ask relevant questions. Adding that this is why the NOA is on the streets across the country on the eve of election on a motorised campaigns to further raise awareness of the enlarged public of the fact that there are several sources from which they can ask questions to authenticate the truth or otherwise of whatever they see on social media before they start sharing widely.
Akoge who acknowledged that the advent of digital media has made information to go viral within minutes, said that it has become extremely important to sensitize the public and to say look, do not accept what you see, verify, fact-check, ask questions, interrogate the intent of those who are putting out these messages so that at the end of the day, we can have a peaceful general elections that are violent free and whose outcomes and results would be accepted generally by the electorates and members of the public.
The Director informed that streets enlightenment is happening across the country in various states and local governments as part of National Orientation Agency’s efforts in sensitization, orientation and advocacy in the build up to the general elections so as to ensure we have peaceful and credible general elections.
