The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, says the phenomenon of fake news, if left unchecked, poses more threat to the nation than insurgency and militancy.
The minister reiterated this position on Tuesday in Abuja at the seventh edition of the National Security Seminar with the theme “Consolidating on the Gains of Counter-Terrorism Operations in Nigeria’’.
The seminar was jointly organised by the National Defence College of Nigeria, the Office of the National Security Adviser and the Alumni Association of National Defence College.
Mohammed said that the phenomenon of fake news propagated majorly by the social media “is so serious that it threatened to break the country rapidly even more than insurgency’’.
He noted that to consolidate on the defeat of the Boko Haram insurgent, the armed forces should give special attention to its communication and information dissemination strategy.
“We must pay adequate attention to communication strategy and have our people who will be very active also on the social media.
“It is a front that has been largely neglected which we must now pay special and adequate attention to,’’ he said.
According to him, fake news phenomenon is a situation where someone or some persons will fabricate stories capable of setting one group or religion against the other and send them out through the social media.