Emmanuel Thomas I Tuesday, July 04, 2023
IKEJA, Lagos, Nigeria – The European Union Observer Mission( EU EOM) to Nigeria for the 2023 general election has captured two prominent Nigerians, the Former Minister of Aviation, Mr. Femi Fani Kayode, FFK and former Minister of State for Niger Delta and later Labour Mr. Festus Keyamo, SAN as purveyors of fake news.
This was captured in the final report released by the EU EOM on the 2023 general election under misleading information targeting political parties and their candidates during the period leading to the election.
According to the report, FFK made a claim on February 11 that Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar had a meeting with serving military generals in Abuja, accusing Atiku of wanting to incite chaos, provoke coup and established a new unconstitutional order only for the military to deny the report. Recall that FFK later apologized for misleading Nigerians after several visits to the Department of State Service, DSS.
On his part, the Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Festus Keyamo, promoted on his Twitter page that candidate of the Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi bribed the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN with N28 billion to secure their support, a report that was debunked by the alleged author in few hours later after the message had gone viral.
In terms of demeaning statements against prominent candidates during the election, the report showed that Thiefnubu had the highest mention in the media with 17,924 mentions followed by Obidiot with 14, 812. Athiefku had just 3,751 mentions, Pdpigs 565 and Obingo 2, 850 total mentions in the media.
The report also documented attacks on journalists covering the election. According to it, “Physical attacks on journalists were recorded in Lagos, Kano and five other southern states.
“In two further states, Police on election day arrested two journalists on bogus charges, while malign online reporters and other media workers and fact checkers go unpunished.
“The EU EOM observers observed 10 incidents involving media covering the election on February 25 and 21 cases on March 18 election.
“Several attacks occurred in plain sight of the police and in some cases the police detained the journalists who documented irregularities but not the attacker. Such incidents clearly demonstrate the absence of actual protection of media practitioners.
“Only in one of these instances did the police open investigation against the assailant”, the report said, adding that “overall, impunity encouraged by the police inaction was detrimental to the freedom of expression, particularly as independent and trusted outlets were targeted and do not accord with Nigeria’s regional and international commitment for protection of the media and freedom of expression as a whole”.
