Mention One Lie I’ve Said, Lai Mohammed Challenges Critics

Posted on February 3, 2017

AISHA ABUBAKAR/ Agency reports

Calling me ‘Lie’ Mohammed is the price for service, says Lai

The minister of information and culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has challenged those who say he lies to Nigerians to mention one instance.

The minister throw the challenge Friday while speaking during his working visit to the headquarters of Daar Communications Plc, owners of African Independent Television (AIT) and Raypower FM in Abuja.

According to Mohammed, he reads comments of people who claim not to believe what he says and coin his first name as “Lie’’ but he sees such comments as that of the mindset of the people and a price he had to pay for serving the nation.

“People just have a mindset that whatever Lai Mohammed says cannot be true, but nobody has ever come out to say that I said `Y’ and it was `Z’ that happened. “Give me one thing that I have said which is not true.

“There is a Yoruba proverb that says that you can only wake up somebody who is sleeping, you cannot wake up a fellow who is pretending to fall asleep.”

“For me, I will remain focused because it is a price you pay for serving your country. I also see this as a deliberate strategy to whittle me down, but I must remain focused and will not be distracted.

Mohammed said some people found it difficult to separate “Lai Mohammed” who served as the All Progressives Congress, APC spokesperson and “Lai Mohammed”, Nigeria’s Minister of Information’’.

“I believe sincerely that the last election was fought very bitterly and I was largely the face of the party and I kept asking them to fight me on facts, not on emotions,” he said.

The minister recalled when he led local and foreign journalists on tour of the north-east on 5 December, 2015 and he told the world that Boko Haram war had been technically defeated, when he made the claim nobody believed him but that today he had been vindicated.

He said all the schools that were closed then in the north-east had been reopened and that all the territory occupied by the insurgents had been reclaimed by the military.

He added that recently, he led a team that flew over Sambisa forest unhindered and without traces of Boko Haram terrorists.

“However, when you are fighting insurgency, it is not like regular war that you win at once, there will still be suicide bombing. There will still be ambush but that does not mean that we have not won the war,”he said.

The minister also expressed concerns over the siege of disinformation and fake news that is pervading the country and could bring the country on her knees if not checked, like it happened in Rwanda.

He said that the dangerous trend of disinformation and fake news championed by social media and which the traditional media are “unfortunately feeding on, could tear the fabric of society, if not checked.

Mohammed recalled the role that disinformation, fake news and hate speeches played in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda in which over 800,000 people were killed, and urged the media to draw some lessons from that unfortunate development.

“There was a time when the spoken and the written words were not challenged or questioned, but today it is not so.

“About 50 per cent of what we read in the social media is not true but unfortunately even when it is not credible, it goes viral and people believe the fake stories.

“My greatest problem and worry is with the traditional media, which are latching on the same fake news and disinformation.

“I am worried because it affects the credibility of the media itself and once the media is no longer believed by the people, then it has serious consequences on the society,’’ he said.

The minister recalled the recent disinformation on President Muhammadu Buhari, who is on vacation and the fabricated news on his death and health went viral.

“What happened in the last couple of weeks is quite worrisome. Mr. President left for a vacation. When he was leaving, he transmitted the necessary letter to the National Assembly on who was going to act.

“He said during his vacation, he will also use the opportunity to carry out his routine medical check-up. Within 12 hours of leaving the country, the news was that he had died, and when that was not sustainable, they said he was critically ill.

”Some even went on to say that he was actually flown out of the country in an ambulance, when the whole world saw when he was leaving and it was televised. For a week or so all we heard was this dangerous disinformation,” the Minister said.

He appealed to traditional media not to join forces with the purveyors of fake news but ensure that the unity and security of the country become paramount consideration when weighing what news to send out.

The Executive Chairman of DAAR Communication, Raymond Dokpesi Jnr. said the issue raised by the minister was very pertinent to media and journalism generally.

“The emergence of fake news driven primarily by social media is indeed a global phenomenon,

“It behoves on us the traditional media to reaffirm our commitment to the highest ethic and standard of journalism, to investigate and fact-check stories before we go to press.”

He said AIT and Raypower, over the years have been absolutely committed to the highest standard of journalism.

Dokpesi said they had been looking forward to the minister’s visit.

“You are our own minister. After the whole cycle of electioneering, there must be the need to build bridges and move from political mood to governance mood,’’ he said..

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