By Williams Anuku Abuja
Lai Mohammed, Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture on Thursday, said no amount of pressure on President Muhammadu Buhari to resign would make him leave office before 2023 when his tenure will end.
There have been renewed calls for the president to resign after terrorists killed over 70 rice farmers in Borno State on Saturday.
“Let me say here that this call amounts to playing dirty politics with the issue of security, and it is cheap and irresponsible,” Mohammed said.
“Mr President was elected in 2015 for a four-year term and re-elected in 2019 for another four-year term. No amount of hysterical calls for resignation will prevent him from serving out his term.”
He stressed that the killing of defenceless farmers was an act of cowardice and savagery by a group of deranged terrorists, insisting that the killing was not a true reflection of the progress made by the military against Boko Haram.
“That Boko Haram going after soft targets is a sign of weakness and desperation on their part, especially after they have suffered huge setbacks in the hands of the military in recent times.
“The modus operandi of a losing terror group is to go after soft targets in order to stay relevant. It’s not only Boko Haram that does that. In 2019, Al-Shabab attacked a Complex in Nairobi, Kenya, killing more than 20.
“Similarly, the Peshawar school massacre of 16 December 2014 in Pakistan, carried out by six gunmen affiliated with the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, left about 150 people dead, most of them students.”
The minister gave this position at a meeting with Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN) on Thursday, where he solicited their support to partner with the government in checking the excesses of fake news, especially from the social media.
He said that newspapers are not immune to social media malaise since they have online editions that attract a lot of traffic, which also leverage social media in their publishing business.
He lamented that if the online Editions of newspapers become afflicted with the same fake news and disinformation syndrome, then there would be trouble.
While making reference to the #EndSARS protest and the aftermath where newspapers were found to have carried fake news, which he noted might have caused them to lose their credibility and public trust, with disastrous consequences.
He said it was for that reason that the federal government had decided to enlist their support in its quest to ensure responsible use of social media.
Denying the rumour that the government was planning to shut down the internet, the minister said that the action of the government in regulating content, which many misinterpreted to mean, stifling press freedom or free speech, was not peculiar to Nigeria but has been a subject of debate in most parts of the world, especially the West.
He said that what the government has done is to ensure responsible use of social media.
Mohammed said, “During the crisis, almost all newspapers fell for the hoax that there was a massacre at the Lekki Toll Gate. Screaming headlines of 70 or more people shot dead at the Lekki Toll Gate made the front pages of newspapers, without a shred of evidence.
” It is baffling how newspapers, which were supposed to have reporters and photographers on the ground at the Lekki Toll Gate, fell for such a hoax.
“Did they also rely on the fake news and disinformation that permeated social media? Why shouldn’t the newspapers have led the narrative with verifiable figures and well-grounded sources? Had the papers done this, perhaps the likes of Cable News Network (CNN), which were misled by social media, would not have goofed badly as they did.”