The Federal Government has accused the Indigenous People of Biafra
(IPOB) of using fake videos of mass killings, harvested from other
parts of Africa and doctored to look current, to mislead the
international community and win their support.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, stated
this when he addressed Online Publishers in Lagos on Monday.
”We must warn the nation against IPOB’s next line of action, which is
to externalize their lies and propaganda. Now they are writing to the
governments and the national parliaments of some Western nations to
give the impression that they are victims of an ethno-sectarian
violence orchestrated by the government, hence they need protection.
”Some of the tools that have been employed by IPOB include blatant
lies and cheap propaganda, and the medium of choice for the
organization is the Social Media. IPOB has harvested gory videos and
pictures from other lands and the distant past, which they are now
circulating via the Social Media, to deceive the international
community into believing that the people of the South-east are being
subjected to state-sponsored, ethno-religious violence.
”Such videos, which have very high emotive quotient, are circulating
on the Social Media as we speak. These videos are doctored to make
them look current. They are fake!” he said.
Alhaji Mohammed said some ill-informed foreign individuals are already
trumpeting IPOB’s lies and propaganda and even alleging genocide,
adding: ”It is either they do not understand the meaning of genocide
or are being mischievous. Either way, there is nothing like genocide
anywhere in our country today. What we have in the South-east is a
clampdown on a band of lawless people who have no regard for the laws
of the land.”
He appealed to the Online Publishers to help counter the fake
narrative on the Social Media on the situation in the South-east
”In the interest of the nation and your own interest, you must
counter this fake narrative, report the issues responsibly and without
sensationalism and present the truth to the public. If the Social
Media, your platform, is discredited because of the activities of
quacks and Internet Trollers, you too will be discredited and your
publications will simply go down.
”That is why you must distinguish yourselves, as trained and tested
professionals, from the charlatans who have seized the Social Media by
the jugular, those who have no regard for the truth and who do not
care whether their fake posts set the nation ablaze,” the Minister
said.
He reiterated his earlier statement that IPOB is being sponsored by a
coalition of politically-disgruntled and treasury looters, and that
the organization is a contraption against the Buhari Administration.
