Fake News

By Tijani Abiola

In a spacy world saturated with information, the desert of personal interest and a space box of selfish interest, discerning the truth has become increasingly challenging, from social media feeds to 24-hour news cycles.

We are inundated with facts, opinions, and outright falsehoods. Yet, the quest for truth remains vital, influencing our decisions, shaping our beliefs, and guiding our actions. So, who can tell you the truth?

Science, by its very nature, is a rigorous pursuit of truth. Through the scientific method, hypotheses are tested, results are peer-reviewed, and conclusions are drawn based on empirical evidence. Institutions like the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the World Health Organization (WHO), and universities worldwide are pillars of this endeavour. Their commitment to objectivity and reproducibility makes them reliable sources of truth, particularly in areas like medicine, climate change, and technology, but can we say they are the real source of truth?

Media outlets are a relaxed space for the most trusted outlets for news reports, an avenue that most use to suit themselves and tailor their way of life. Most of the time, the media can also be biased. Established organisations like the BBC, The New York Times, and Reuters have built reputations for thorough and responsible journalism. These institutions adhere to journalistic standards, including fact-checking, corroboration, and ethical reporting. Their role in a democratic society is to hold power accountable and inform the public, making them essential sources of truth, but yet, can they tell you the truth?

Experts with a deep understanding of their fields and elders with numerous past useful experiences can provide accurate information and insights. Whether it’s a doctor discussing health issues, a historian analysing past events, or an economist interpreting market trends, these individuals rely on years of study and experience. Their expertise and dedication to their disciplines make them credible sources of truth; still, will you accept trends, mind experience and expertise ideas as the truth?

Ultimately, each of us has the responsibility to discern the truth. Critical thinking is our best defence against misinformation. By questioning sources, analysing arguments, and seeking evidence, we can better navigate the complex landscape of modern information. No one takes information to trust and accepts it as truth, except if they are convinced to accept it as truth.

In a world where the truth can often seem elusive, it is essential to exercise critical thinking before accepting any information to be true. One can only convince and prove with past experiences or actions that seem to complement the existing information left for you to think deeply and analyse whether to believe or negate the information. 

Still, you are the best person to tell yourself the truth through your critical thinking, valuing evidence over opinion, expertise over hearsay, and integrity over convenience. We can navigate the complexities of our information-rich world. Ultimately, the truth is out there, but we must seek and accept it diligently and responsibly.

Tijani Abiola T. wrote via abiolatijani001@gmail.com.

By Umar Namadi

International Press Centre (IPC) held a two-day capacity-building workshop on combatting information disorder in democratic governance reporting using fact-checking and FOI tools. 

The workshop is being held as part of the activities under Component 4 (Support to Media) of the European Union Support to Democratic Governance in Nigeria (EUSDGN II) project. IPC is the lead implementing partner. 

The two-day workshop held at Bafra International Hotel in Kaduna had in attendance 40 participants across nine (9) states of Northern Nigeria (Abuja, Kaduna, Kastina, Niger, Bauchi, Jigawa, Kano, Jos, Benue) who are new/mid-level journalists, community journalists, freelance journalists, etc. 

Participants were introduced to the rudiments of fact-checking using a tool and how to hold government and public institutions accountable for their activities using the FOIA (2011). 

As the program manager, Mrs Stella Nwofia, stated in her welcome address at the Sardauna Hall in the hotel, “The training program seeks to address a critical aspect highlighted in the EU-EOM final report on the 2023 general elections, which underlines that online social platforms played a significant role in both campaigning and public oversight of the electoral process. 

However, there were instances where these platforms were misused, either for campaigning lacking transparency or for creating misleading impressions of widespread support. 

Despite repeated warnings from government officials about the dangers of misinformation, various entities, including individuals associated with major political parties, disseminated false information online. 

Additionally, the report notes that major parties utilised paid advertising on online platforms. However, the full extent of this practice remained obscured due to a lack of transparency within these platforms.” 

She added that “The training program, which commenced in Ondo State as the initial phase and was followed by Port-Harcourt, is designed as a three-part series. Its primary goal is to provide journalists nationwide with essential tools, skills, and knowledge. The program aims to empower journalists to adeptly navigate the challenges of the digital era while maintaining standards of responsibility and ethical behaviour.

“Our goal is to empower journalists to uphold truth, advocate for integrity, and safeguard democracy by promoting a culture of critical thinking, fact verification, and media literacy.”

By Aisar Fagge

Rumours circulating on social media platforms about the resignation of Sheikh Aminu Ibrahim Daurawa, the Commandant General of Kano State Hisbah Command, were found to be false.

Speaking to Dr. Mujahid Aminuddeen, Deputy Commander General of Kano Hisbah, he said, “All those stories were fake, and Sheikh Daurawa is already in his office attending to many people.”

The development of this fake news is not unconnected to the story of the release of Murja Kunya, the embattled TikToker who was arrested by Hisbah after receiving a series of complaints against her from the residents of the area where she lives.

After being taken to court, Kunya was facing multiple charges, denied bail, and the date for her trial was set. However, yesterday, February 18th, new information revealed that Kunya had been miraculously released.

The Daily Reality is working to find out why, how, and under what condition(s) she was released.

By Lawan Bukar Maigana 

Maimunatu Suleiman, 21, stabbed her husband, Aliyu Mohammed Gidado, to death on July 5th, 2023, in their residence at Kofar Dumi in Bauchi State, Nigeria. 

Since then, I have read different narratives about the tragic incident. Some said she killed him because it was a forced marriage, while others said she murdered him because of his willingness to remarry. 

As a trained journalist and fact-checker, I needed to investigate the narratives’ source, save the public from being misled by merchants of misinformation and fake news, and feed the crowd with authentic information.  

Using Facebook, I identified his neighbour and demanded that he send me his phone number so we could talk about the incident, and he did. He told me that Aliyu and his wife married in January 2020 and have one child—a boy. 

“Their marriage was out of love. Everybody knows them, and most people in their area have admired them because of their love for each other which culminated in their marriage. 

“And they never had any serious issues until recently when Aliyu realised that Maimuna had been going out without his permission as her husband.

“Aliyu returned home three days ago and expressed sadness about her deviant conduct, which later resulted in a serious misunderstanding between them that nearly broke their marriage, but his father and older brother intervened”, the neighbour explained.

On the day the incident happened, Gidado’s father saw Maimunatu’s friend coming out of their house after they spent hours in her room holding her plasma TV, but he didn’t talk to them. 

It is a tradition in their house that the last person who comes in after 10:00 pm ensures everyone is around before closing the gate. 

Wednesday night after 10 pm, his older brother called his name and asked if he was around so he would lock the gate, but Aliyu didn’t answer. His brother asked thrice but to no avail. 

Worriedly, his brother approached his room and observed that he was gasping for breath. He quickly got back to his room and took a touch and entered the room and saw his brother soaked in blood while his wife, the prime suspect, was facing him. 

That was when he quickly called their father to see what happened and subsequently sought help from their neighbours to rush their brother to the hospital. Unluckily, Gidado died before they got to the hospital. 

Out of patience, concern, and resilience, they rushed his wife to the hospital, thinking she was stabbed. The doctors informed them that she was safe and had only sustained bruises on her stomach. 

After she regained consciousness, Gidado’s father asked what had happened, and she told them that thieves had jumped over the fence and killed her husband when she went to the toilet to pour her child’s urine. 

She even told them that the thieves ran with her plasma TV, unknown to her that the bereaved old man saw her friends going with her plasma TV hours before the unfortunate incident but didn’t argue with her. 

Curiously, the victim’s father told her that there was no way thieves would jump over the fence without being seen by a tea seller beside their gate, whose place is always busy with people. 

After discovering that she was suspicious, they called police on her. 

The cops took her to the station, where she confessed that she stabbed him twice in his chest because of a misunderstanding in the evening. 

It was also reliably confirmed that she has a three-month pregnancy for Gidado. 

Therefore, those who said the murderer was forcefully married to him are just lying to the public. Their marriage was out of enormous love. 

Similarly, an Abuja-based lady Maryam Sanda mercilessly stabbed her husband to death on November 2017. 

Many media outlets, largely online alongside social media influencers, had disseminated unverified chronicle stories about the tragic incident without confirmation from the parties involved. 

Sharing unfiltered and fabricated information is seemingly becoming a norm in Nigeria among media outlets and internet users to manipulate people’s perceptions of facts. 

It is necessary to call on spreaders of information and netizens to please desist from sharing unverified information and cultivate the habit of digging into stories before publishing them. 

Please pray for the repose of Gidado and his mother. She died in early January 2023. 

Lawan Bukar Maigana writes from Borno and can be reached via email:lawanbukarmaigana@gmail.com.

By Uzair Adam Imam

The news making the round about the increment in school fees by the management of Bayero University, Kano (BUK), has dragged many students into a sheer panic while others fear the increment would be the end of their academic journey.

However, the school management debunked the circulated news on Wednesday and described it as fake news meant to startle students.

Malam Lamara Garba, the school Deputy Registrar, Public Affairs, told The Daily Reality that the story was baseless, urging the general public to reject it as “there is no official disclosure on that effect”.

The Daily Reality recalled that the news about the increment in the school fees to N170,000, initially said to be leaked information, has gone viral since the beginning of the last week.

The Students Union Government (SUG) claimed to have made several attempts to highlight the negative consequences the increment would have on students and subsequently held two meetings on the process with the school management.

Auwal Lawal Nadabo, the school acting SUG President, stated that all their efforts were in vain as the school management remained firmly on its stands after all the meetings.

Nadabo, who relayed this on a Facebook post, said, “The school management, after all consultations and finalizing the proposed fees, called for a second meeting where it was confirmed to the student leaders that the new range of school fees would be N97,000 to N170,000, as the case may be.

However, asked whether what the SUG President said was true, Garba denied knowledge of the meetings, saying, “I don’t even know when they had the said meeting with the management.”

By Aisar Fagge

As part of the preventive measures, the Center for Democratic and Development (CDD) trained journalists and social media influencers on how to combat fake news ahead of the 2023 general elections.

The training Wednesday in Lagos was in collaboration with the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a nonprofit organisation based in the United States of America.

Participants of the workshop, who are mostly journalists, influencers, media experts and members of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), were drawn from different parts of the country in order to have a wider impact on the objective of the event.

The CDD Director, Idayat Hassan, stated that the participants were trained with vital skills on how to identify and prevent the propagation of fake, misleading and incendiary reports sent to them to share on their channels, handles and timelines.

The participants were also cautioned on the dangers of fake news and the implications of misinformation, and how the duo can terrorise the peace in Nigeria.

It was gathered that the training was given on how to use tools forensically, such as Geolocate, Google image search and Tineye, to detect fake videos, tweets, pictures and news.

Politicians use social media to spread fake news

The director also decried the way some politicians avoid media gatekeeping and use social media to spread fake narratives to the public, thus necessitating measures to address the issue.

She further said, “While the phenomenon of political players intentionally disseminating false information is well-known and discussed, the role of digital media influencers who are meant to be the bearers of truth and factual accuracy and in combating misinformation and disinformation has not received as much attention.”

There are many crises online

The CDD Communications Lead, Armsfree Ajanaku, said there are many crises online as people commit violence without consequence.

He stated, “Online gender-based violence exists within a context similar to what happens in real life, which is just as destructive as offline violence.

“We now live in a virtual society, where offline violence has extended to online, which makes it easier for people to commit violence without consequences.

“Women are the main targets of online violence, especially the ones with voices, like female politicians, service personnel, women’s rights activists, journalists, women leaders, etc. As it is globally, Nigeria faces a worse case due to our culturally sensitive environment,” he added.

In his presentation, Introduction to Fake News Ecosystems and Techniques of Spotting and Countering Fake News, CDD Project Manager, Abiodun Banjoko, noted that the 21st Century had seen the weaponisation of information on an unprecedented scale. According to him, disinformation, misinformation and malinformation are the greatest threats to the Information age, especially in a multi-ethnic and religious country like Nigeria. He, therefore, urged the participants to use the skills and knowledge they acquired in combating fake news in their endeavours.

By Uzairu Adam Imam

To combat fake news and safeguard society from its adverse effects, Nigerians have been advised to check for elements of credibility in reports and consult media platforms with proven integrity in sourcing for news and information.

A lecturer in the Department of Mass Communication, Kano State Polytechnic, Mallam Aisar Fagge, made the submission during a one-day workshop organized by the popular online newspaper The Daily Reality.

The lecture themed “Fake News on Nigerian Cyber Space: The Role of an Ideal Journalist” afforded young journalists the opportunity to understand the challenges of contemporary journalism practice.

Mallam Fagge said, “It is said ‘seeing is believing’ but not anymore. With Deepfake [and other apps], people can easily manipulate videos, pictures, etc. Thus, we need to dissect pieces of information before sharing them,” he stated.

He also called on the general public to examine stories critically before believing or sharing them with other people.

He further noted that fake news could be countered by applying the “technological, journalistic and pedagogical approaches among others.”

He noted that the nature of social media has made journalism more tasking and placed more responsibility on journalists, which behooves them to protect the image of journalism and not allow quacks to run them out of business.

Journalism educators, practitioners from conventional media and online newspapers as well as the students of Mass Communication from Kano State Polytechnic and Bayero University, Kano attended the event that took place on Sunday, 6th November, 2022 at the Centre for Research in Nigerian Languages, Translation and Folklore, BUK New Site.

By Aisar Fagge

The Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) has awarded another set of Covid-19 vaccine champions on identifying, tracking and countering Covid-19 related false narratives, rumours, misconceptions and disinformation on social media platforms.

The program tittled “Public Education on COVID-19 Vaccine Project” was aimed at educating, informing and sensitizing people on the importance of Covid-19 vaccine with a view to counter false narratives about it.

Supported by MacArthur Foundation, the centre has been working with 18 partner organizations and social media influencers in six selected states from Northern Nigeria to enlighten the public about the vaccine through various activities and programmes.

Recalled that, Covid-19 is a communicable respiratory disease that terrorises the entire world, leading to the death of number of people and set the economies of hundreds of nations in limbo.

The details on the event was in a statement signed Wednesday, 14th September 2022, by the coordinator of the campaign, Mal. Hamza Ibrahim.

The statement reads in part: “CITAD received 93 applications from young people who want to be champions and 18 of them were selected from six northern states – Kano, Kaduna, Bauchi, Borno, Plateau and Kogi State and trained for two days.”

“After their training, they embarked on daily campaigns on tracking, countering and persuading people to take the vaccine. They submitted reports of their campaigns at the end of every month and the reports were shared with panel of judges who review, assess and subsequently selected the best three who are then regarded as the Covid-19 champions.”

“In this fourth round of the competition, Sumayya Abdulaziz from Kaduna emerged in the 1st position with 97 points and got Hisense refrigerator. Mundi Ilyasu from Kogi State emerged 2nd with 75 points and was rewarded with Plasma TV. From Bauchi State, Abdullahi Barau emerged in 3rd position with 70 points and went home with a mini laptop.”

By Uzair Adam Imam

The Labour Party Presidential Candidate, Peter Obi, has accused the way his opponents adopted a negative strategy of trolling and insinuating fake news and misinformation against him and his party.

Obi said this Thursday in his verified Tweeter handle, adding that his opponents create misinformation on social media and deliberately attribute them to him and his party.

The Daily Reality recalls that Obi and the APC Presidential Candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, were engaged in a serious war of words last week.

Obi tweeted, “As we approach the official kick off of the 2023 election campaign, it has become evident that the opposition have adopted a negative strategy of trolling and insinuating fake news and misinformation in the social media space and blaming the Labour Party, its presidential candidate and their supporters of same.

“We remain resolute in our commitment to an issue-based and clean campaign. We will also rebuff all such ploys of deceit and calumny meant to create disaffection among Nigeria’s voting population, who desire credible leadership change. – PO,” he said.

On his part, Tinubu also blamed Obi supporters for mudslinging and spreading fake news against him and other candidates ahead the 2023 general election.

By Aisar Fagge

Isah Nasidi, a young Nigerian PhD student of Mass Communication and a research fellow at the Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism, developed a new model called SAMCAV. First of its kind, the model aims to combat disinformation and discover the fourth typology of information disorder, which he called dil-information.

A statement sent to The Daily Reality reveals that Nasidi’s discovery was the outcome of the six-month research fellowship of the Kwame Kari-Kari Fact-checking and Research Fellowship, which selected 17 researchers from four West African countries to research information disorder.

The SAMCAV model links six elements of information disorder; Source, Agent, Message, Channel, Audience and Victim. These elements are involved in the production, distribution and consumption of information disorder.

According to the researcher, the model will help researchers and policymakers to know how disordered information flows and the effects it causes in society.

Moreover, the work discovers the concept of ‘dil-information’ as the fourth type of information disorder, which has never been considered as an independent typology separate from disinformation, misinformation, and malinformation.

Dil-information is defined as genuine information diluted with false information, misinterpreted or misrepresented with or without intent to harm. Terms like mostly true, half-true, mostly false and misleading are used to classify claims of this nature.

The research aims to set a research agenda for scholars working in this virgin area and help in policy making and developing mechanisms for solving the problem.

Isah Nasidi, an independent researcher and media consultant, is an indigene of Kano state. He bagged his first and second degrees in Mass Communication at Bayero University, Kano. He is currently a PhD student of Mass Communication, University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), and the Secretary of Communication History Division of International Communication Association (USA).