Fake news is in the news. But fake news is not news. It shouldn’t be presented in the first place, and shouldn’t be allowed to spread because it’s false and misleading.
It was reported that the Obi of Onitsha, Igwe Nnaemeka Alfred Achebe, could have been among the victims of the terror attack on the Abuja-Kaduna train on March 28. If that had happened, it would have raised the scale of the tragedy, given the high profile of the traditional ruler.
The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) said 362 people were on board the train. Sadly, eight passengers died in the attack, more were injured, and the whereabouts of well over 100 are still unknown a week after the incident.
Igwe Achebe was reported saying “I was among the passengers meant to be on the train last Monday because I had a meeting I was supposed to be attending. I was already at the train station when I got a call over an emergency and I had to leave the station to attend to it.”
But Chief of Staff of Ime Obi Onicha, Chief Osita Anionwu, said Igwe Achebe never said so, was never at the train station, and had safely travelled by road on that day to deliver a lecture at the Armed Forces Command and Staff College (AFCSC), Jaji, Kaduna State.
He also said in a statement that Igwe Achebe had attended the South-East Leadership press conference in Enugu on March 31. He narrated what happened at the event, saying the traditional ruler, in his goodwill message, “lamented the state of insecurity and violence in the country and drew attention to the train attack in which the Onitsha kingdom lost the young medical doctor, Chinelo Megafu.”
According to him, “It was in that connection that His Majesty mentioned casually that the option of his travelling by train to Kaduna on that date had long been set aside in favour of road travel by mutual agreement with his hosts.
“No reference was made to any imaginary phone call from anyone. This has been His Majesty’s only public reference to the tragic train attack of 28 March.”
So who was responsible for the fake news? “The news media were present at the Enugu meeting and one of them would be the likely source of the false and convoluted story claiming that His Majesty made the said statement on Saturday, 2 April, 2022,” Aniowu said.
Reporters and, by extension, the media, have a responsibility to be factual. Fake news is totally unacceptable.