The lifespan of a lie can be quite elastic depending on how intricately it is woven. Some can be buried for years, but in the age of social media it can be brutally short.
That is why I am often confused as to the motivations of purveyors of fake news who know they can be found out in a matter of minutes or hours. While the creators have their dubious agenda, those who spread the lies – especially online – probably do so with some advantage in mind.
Desperate bloggers and website owners who want to attract traffic to their sites would push out the most sensational of stories without subjecting same to the most basic journalistic tests. The more excitable amongst us who get their thrills from spreading the latest tales, are only too glad to share same with the gullible hordes on social media. So what, on the surface, looks like a manifestation of extreme insanity, clearly has method to it.
These days the internet has become a sea of lies: headlines lie, photos and videos tell even bigger lies. The wicked and mischievous can lift a photograph from five years ago and use it to drive a story in a similar context today. The reader would swear he saw the pictures with his own eyes until a rebuttal knocks him back to reality.
Beginning with the election campaign that threw up Donald Trump as US president, fake news has become a multimillion dollar global industry relentlessly deployed for political ends. Nigerians, quick to pick up on global trends no matter how diabolical – have not been slow to jump on the bandwagon.
During the recent general elections it seemed there was a competition by liars to outdo themselves on social media. Perhaps anticipating the impact that the phenomenon could have in determining the outcome of the electoral contest, the then Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, launched a campaign against fake news. It was a non-starter that was quickly brushed aside by malevolent forces who thrive best in polarised environments such as ours.
The inauguration ceremonies at federal and state levels in the last few days provided another fertile ground for fake news merchants to wreak their usual havoc. While the lies exposed the levels of bitterness and hate in our society, it also made for hilarity just imagining what the mischief-makers were trying to achieve. I would touch on a few.
One headline screamed that barely 24 hours after leaving office former Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha, his wife and brother, were arrested by agents of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Given his controversial nature, and the alarm he had raised in the preceding weeks that his political foes were out to humiliate him using the anti-graft agency, this supposed news break looked like a swift fulfilment of prophecy.
The report quickly went viral and bloggers lost their heads as they tripped over themselves to see who would be quickest to the draw in the posting the non-news.
For those in the opposition waiting patiently for the All Progressives Congress (APC) government to set on its own, this was titillating stuff. Former Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, an alumnus of the EFCC’s Abuja detention facilities, was quick to rush out a mocking post welcoming Okorocha to the club. I am sure wherever he was holed up Rochas must have snorted derisively that this was a clear case of ‘Iberiberism.’
Several hours after his enemies had rejoiced at the speed at which retribution had supposedly visited the recently departed governor, the EFCC emerged with a spoilsport press statement denying that it had arrested him and his wife.
Clearly, there must be something about Imo State in this season as another major fake news item – also associated with the indefatigable Okorocha – emerged from there. The great statue builder had planted a giant concrete finger pointing towards the heavens somewhere in the state capital as an enduring democracy dividend for his people.
But lo and behold, the whiff of his cologne had barely evaporated from Government House, when bulldozers ostensibly ordered by the new governor, Emeka Ihedioha, took to demolishing the so-called ‘Akachi’ statue.
It was a surprise ‘move’ to see the new helmsman who comes across as the restrained and understated opposite of his excitable predecessor, bare his fangs so early in the day. The headlines announced that Ihedioha had swung into action by destroying one of the most noticeable of Rochas’ infamous collection of statues.
While Okorocha may have an army of detractors, even they were taken aback that the new governor’s priority would be pulling down his predecessor’s ‘Eighth Wonder.’ A statement by his spokesman many hours later denying he ever ordered the demolition barely spoilt the fun for the fake news brigade. Some only reported he directed a halt in proceedings – leaving out the fact that they ascribed to him an action he never ordered in the first place.
Meanwhile, back in Lagos State – home to a long line of ‘Action Governors’ – the new man Babajide Sanwo-Olu was apparently too slow for the hacks. A few hours after the oath-taking ceremony and with no word on appointments, they decided to make a key one for him. They announced he had appointed the Director-General of his campaign organisation, Tayo Ayinde, as Chief of Staff.
Such an appointment was clearly in the works, but at the time the report appeared it had not been made official. It would be confirmed last Friday. Mortified at the leak, Ayinde issued a statement denying he had been named to the new role.
He signed off with a lecture to the media about always crosschecking their facts – and there’s the rub. These days ‘the media’ is a catch-all phrase for everyone with a Facebook page or Twitter account. Not so. It would not have been lost on him, if he had checked, that not one of the traditional media outlets carried the ‘fake’ report. But this was one unusual case of ‘fake news’ – not being fake. Instead of lambasting those who scooped the news of his appointment, it would have been wiser not to respond and just let official confirmation come.
I would touch on one more report, but at the risk of being accused of spreading fake news would preface it by saying he ‘allegedly’ did so. Up north, it was reported that the one of the first acts of the newly-inaugurated Yobe State Governor, Mai Mala Buni, was the acquisition of a brand new wife – reportedly his third.
He has not deigned to respond to the reports so I would assume that is his way of not dignifying the fabricators of an event that never took place with a response. Alternatively, his deafening silence could be confirmation of the nuptials as one of the activities of the inaugural season in the state.
Perhaps, there hasn’t been a confirmation or denial because the governor hasn’t made strategic media aide appointments. Hopefully, a denial is winging its way to the press – however long it takes. So for now I would suggest we file the report of Buni’s ‘new wife’ in the false reports category.
For all their entertainment value, fake news represent a cancer that can tear a volatile multi-religious and multi-ethnic society like ours apart. Such reports can trigger devastating damage that rebuttals that come hours after cannot mend. Even worse, those who act on the strength of the initial account may never get to read the denials.
Aside being a clear and present danger to our collective security, fake news erode trust in an environment where people desperately need to trust one another and those who govern them.
That is why the government – executive branch and legislature – must make the fight against fake news a priority in this new dispensation. The traditional media also has existential reasons to be part of this effort.
As a first step, those who generate fake news and those who gladly spread the poison should be made to pay a steep price. It is the least we can do to stave off tragedies somewhere in the future.