Friday Olokor, Jos

Information experts across the country have expressed concern over the use of social media in the promotion of hate speeches, warning that the social media may mar the 2019 elections.

To check the trend, they have recommended that “stringent measures should be used in checking conventional media and their programmes.”

The resolution and others are contained in a communiqué issued by information managers in the country at the end of their extraordinary meeting with the theme, ‘Hate speeches, fake news and national unity’; held in Jos and organised by the National Council on Information, an agency of the Federal Ministry of Information.

The communique was signed by the NCI Chairman in the Federal Ministry of Information, Abdulyekin Umar, and representatives from the six geopolitical zones and obtained by THE PUNCH on Monday in Jos.

The signatories are Donatus Okpe, Kogi State (North-Central); Lawal Ibrahim, Kano State (North West); Tajudeen Sokunbi, Ogun State (South-West); Ifeanyi Agbai, Abia State  (South-East); Ibrahim Buba, Adamawa State (North-East) and Paulinus Nsirim, Rivers State (South-South).

The communique partly read, “The social media may take over the 2019 elections because Nigerian people have come to rely more and believe the social media over the conventional media. It will be better to kill quickly whatever postings on social media assumed or presumed to be hate speeches or fake news or misinformation by the information managers in various states. We are suggesting the setting up of a council to regulate the use of social media in Nigeria.

“The federal and state ministries of information should use jingles to promote peace and also come up with cartoons on the television and newspapers telling us the dangers of fake news and hate speeches.

“The collaboration must start with the National Orientation Agency and the state governments. There is also the need to start talking to those responsible for law and enforcement of justice to address the issue of citizens taking the laws into their own hands,” it read.

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