Being text of a press conference by the Minister of
Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, in Lagos on Monday.
Good afternoon gentlemen and thank you for honouring our invitation.
As you are aware, the past few days have been a trying one for
Nigeria, with the activities of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB)
reaching a crescendo and threatening the unity of our dear nation,
Nigeria.
IPOB and its gullible supporters felt they could seize a part of the
Nigerian territory, set up parallel military and para-military
organizations, mount road blocks and even confront the Nigerian
military. Their leader openly solicits for weapons and incites hatred
and violence.
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!
This is where you, as responsible Online Publishers, come in. 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.
As I have said many times, this Administration will not stifle press
freedom and freedom of expression because of the activities of the
quacks who have taken over the Social Media but, again, you have to
know that if this platform does not self regulate, it will simply self
destruct. To save yourselves from that, you must adhere strictly to
the tenets of your profession.
Now, back to IPOB. The military has labelled the group a terrorist
organization and the Governors of the states in the South-east have
proscribed it. Some of the group’s atrocities have been well
documented by the military, They include the formation of a Biafra
Secret Service, formation of Biafra National Guard, unauthorised
blocking of public access roads; extortion of money from innocent
civilians at illegal road blocks, and possession and use of weapons
(stones, molotov cocktails, machetes and broken bottles among others)
on a military patrol on 10 September 2017.
According to the military, IPOB engaged in physical confrontation with
troops at a check point on 11 September 2017, during which they
attempted to snatch soldiers’ rifles; and carried out an attack on a
military check point on 12 September 2017. No nation will allow that
to happen unchallenged. The fact that Boko Haram festered because it
was not decisively tackled by the immediate past Administration meant
we should never again give room for any organization to threaten the
corporate existence of our country.
Some have argued that due process was not followed before IPOB was
declared a terrorist organization by the military and proscribed by
Governors of the states in the South-East. This is a dangerous argument
because it provides oxygen for organizations like IPOB need to fester. An
organization that sets up parallel military and para-military bodies, an
organization that mounts road blocks and extorts money from people, an
organization that confronts a national army is nothing but a terrorist
organization
If anything at all, this Federal Government has been too lenient in dealing
with IPOB. Those advancing those spurious arguments should stop giving
succour to IPOB. They should show restraint and responsibility.
WHAT IS IPOB?
Irrespective of its lies, IPOB was NOT set up to fight for the right
of anyone or group, but as a tool to destabilize the
nation, divert attention from the efforts of the Buhari Administration
and obliterate the laudable achievements of the Administration. IPOB
is being sponsored by those I will call the Coalition of the
Politically Disgruntled and the Treasury Looters. They believe that by
sponsoring this group to destabilize the country and trigger chaos,
they will realize their ambition of escaping justice and then be free
to dip their hands into the nation’s treasury again.
Imagine that the activities of IPOB became heightened with the advent
of this Administration, and have been unrelenting since then. If this
is coincidental, then that coincidence is uncanny, at the least.
Remember that Nnamdi Kanu once led a protest at the Nigeria House in
London against Boko Haram insurgency and in support of Nigeria’s
unity, under the Jonathan Administration. So what has gone wrong? Your
guess is as good as mine, but no one is deceived. IPOB is a
contraption against the Buhari Government.
IPOB AND HATE SPEECH
IPOB may not have invented hate speech, fake news and disinformation,
but it has employed this to push its destabilization agenda, and to
hoodwink an unsuspecting public into believing that the Administration
has not moved the nation forward an inch since assuming office.
The self-imposed IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, is the master of hate
speech. No one, including the same people whose
rights he claimed to be championing, escaped his vitriolic and
primitive attacks. We challenge all his sympathizers to scrutinize his
incendiary, divisive and inciting speeches, the name calling and the
derogatory remarks about the nation’s leaders, and then tell the world
if such do not constitute hate speech. Leaders of thought and
commentators who have shown the inclination to accommodate Kanu and
his excesses should say if this is what they expect from someone who
wants to lead.
EXTERNALIZING THE ISSUES
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 ill-informed foreign individuals are already trumpeting IPOB’s lies
and propaganda and even alleging genocide. 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. Those who argue against this
should mention just one country, just one country, anywhere in the world
where an organization has set up parallel military and para-military
organizations, confronted the national army and engaged in extorting the
people without consequence. The truth is that IPOB is being sponsored to
destabilize our nation. It serves no other purpose beyond that.
TIME TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE
Let me use this opportunity to appeal to you to show greater restraint
at this time. The reporting of the IPOB issues, especially since the
military deployed to the South-east for its exercise, tagged Operation
Python Dance II, has been sensationalized by a section of the media.
The divisive and jaundiced opinions of some anarchists have been given
a big play by a section of the media. This is wrong. Let me remind all
of us of the role of the media, especially the radio, in the 1994
genocide in Rwanda that left about 800,000 people dead. As I have
always said, the Nigerian media cannot afford to sit on the fence or
engage in irresponsible journalism when the issue at stake is the very
survival of our nation. This is because no professionals, including
journalists, can operate when a nation descends into anarchy. We must
not, deliberately or otherwise, strengthen the hands of those who are
bent on destroying our nation. Opinion leaders must
also moderate their interventions in order not to aggravate the
situation on ground.
In conclusion, there is no doubt that those of you, Online Publishers,
who are here constitute a critical mass and are major players on the
Social Media. That means you can make a difference. I appeal to you to
eschew sensationalism and report the issue of IPOB and other matters
professionally. Use your number, your professionalism and your
integrity to make the Social Media a more responsible platform.
I thank you for your kind attention.
