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Campaign wars in an era of fake news

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THE widely circulated tale that President Muhammadu Buhari had been cloned or replaced by a lookalike was no doubt aimed at undermining the legitimacy of his government. It proved to be a double-edged sword. And like all misleading information, it was spread for the most gullible and society’s least informed. The story took an unexpected turn and only died after a very embarrassing episode with Bishop David Oyedepo of Winners Chapel. He was in reality the unintended target who fell prey to what has conveniently been termed fake news, in a world where information has been weaponised and can reach millions of people in an instant.  But it is even more dangerous when the use of fake news and misleading statements is embraced by political parties in a country already reeling from deep cultural divisions.

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Since his emergence as vice presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Peter Obi couldn’t seem to get a break from the publicity that trailed him.  First it was the refusal of southeast governors to endorse him. Added to that was the report the deputy Senate president, Ike Ekweremadu, also felt shortchanged.  This dragged on for a while and remained on top of news headlines. Then came the challenge from Fr. Ejike Mbaka. To say that the PDP needed to take the initiative and change the narrative on Obi would be an understatement. Close two weeks ago, it did just that. In order to change the narrative around its vice-presidential candidate, the party alleged that the government had frozen Obi’s bank accounts, those of his wife and his entire family. It was a way to create a distraction from the negative publicity, and it worked.

Naturally, the goal of any opposition party his to discredit the government in power enough to make voters turn against it. Focusing on the ruling party’s weakest points in any attempt to discredit it ahead of an election would only be natural. But how do voters process an inconsistency in messaging from the opposition? How do you make sense a flurry statements, with an average of one new allegation every few days, mostly unsubstantiated and on a variety of subjects, coming from the opposition? This same scenario with the frozen accounts’ allegations played out after the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission reportedly searched the homes of two sons of Theodore Oji, a former governor of Abia. Again, the strategy was to feed the media with false and misleading information suggesting that the primary target of the EFCC raids were Atiku’s sons who happened to live in the same apartment blocks but were absent at this particular point in time.

It is not just fabricated stories on social media that find their way into the mainstream media, the falsehood also come from sources who hide behind anonymity and feed journalists with tainted information. The claims on Atiku’s sons didn’t have to be outright falsehood, it was enough to be misleading and to create the impression that the Atiku presidential campaign was under siege and was being made personal by the government in power.  In all of this, it’s obvious the PDP is eager to play the victim and grab at any opportunity to build that narrative. But the party is also creating a credibility problem for itself when every allegation it makes turns out to be false. It doesn’t help knowing the difficulty it takes to get information out of government institutions or getting them to admit to anything.  In part, it’s a problem made worse by the media when every allegation of the opposition is published without first verifying. It is easy to make a pretense at verification with a he said-she said storyline. Like has become typical, everyone has also moved on from that story. But the damage has been done.

Public institutions have also been on the receiving end of false claims and allegations. Prof Maurice Iwu as chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission may have been a better administrator than his successor, Prof. AttahiruJega. But when things went wrong during elections, Jega was willing to own up to mistakes and make amends, and it helped build trust in his ability to be fair and transparent. It also helped deliver an election that was won by the opposition.  For anyone who has engaged with the present chairman of the commission, Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu, it would impossible to deny him both his organisational skills and the level of trust he is building around the institution.  Most likely, the commission has never seen this level of planning and attention to details in preparation for the general elections.  Elections today are far more competitive than they have ever been. The elections in Osun and Ekiti are proof of that. What no INEC chairman can do however is to be responsible for the conduct of politicians during elections, especially those with ill intentions.  The stand INEC has taken in Zamfara alone could be enough to deny the ruling party a majority in the Senate come June 2019.

The PDP is confident it will come out on top when the results of the presidential elections are declared.  It has consistently alleged that the APC is planning to rig the presidential elections. The party has sought to cast doubt on the competence and neutrality of Prof. Yakubu and even demanded for his resignation.  Recently, Lai Mohammed, the minister of information and culture spoke about just that, the willingness to fabricate news to stoke voter anger and earn their sympathy. With the mix of religion and ethnicity, voter rage in Nigeria can prove to be lethal. The minister speaks for the government and therefore has a stake in the outcome of the general election. But he has been consistent in expressing the threat posed by fake news to stability of the country. His message takes on a new sense of urgency in an election season where fake news is driving the political discourse and has been embraced by the opposition.  The outcome the minister sees from an emerging web of misinformation designed to discredit every institution and the electoral process is a problem of legitimacy for the eventual winner of the 2019 general elections. That in itself opens the door to a whole range of needless and unforeseen problems.

  • Shuaibu is a former Editor of LEADERSHIP newspaper

 

The post Campaign wars in an era of fake news appeared first on Tribune Online.

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