Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka and other panellists have unanimously agreed that fake news be criminalized as a way of curbing the menace.
The call was made in Abuja on Wednesday at a symposium on fake news organised by BBC News.
Soyinka said that fake news has the capacity to cause the Third World War, adding that it may come from Nigeria.
The Nobel laurel, therefore, asserted that fake news be treated as a crime.
Other panellists include Jamie Angus, Director, BBC World Service Group; Funke Egbemode, President, Nigeria Guild of Editors; Uchechukwu Pedro, Founder, Bella Naija.
According to Soyinka, “People do not understand what is like to have things attributed to you which you know nothing about. Apart from the fact that I have been killed on social media several times. These last years I had telephone calls asking me where are you and I said I am in a hall. And I said I know why you are calling because you thought I was dead. Imagine waking up one day and finding a statement attributed to you and in a kind of language which you never used. For example, during former President Good luck Jonathan, there were statements that I said why did Jonathan marry an illiterate woman. I never made comments like that whatsoever.
“And I made a statement that if people are not careful world war 3 may quickly be started by fake news and that fake news probably will be generated by a Nigerian. We have a system where fake news can multiply in a second. Many of the fake news carriers use it for Business. I have someone whom we have tracked down in Poland, using a fake Facebook page of my name and my picture. And I give him a deadline to pull down the page. He lives in the United States of America but lives in Poland. He is a member of an organization called some AIESEC which actually encourages young businessmen and women.
“The first thing is to accept the fact that fake news is real and people should stop rushing to the fake sites. Individuals who have no voice before have been empowered suddenly. Every individual is now a journalist, editor promoter and most of all a publisher. There is competition to be the first to comment. So the ‘419’ individuals sleep in cafes doing all sorts of things. Fake news should be treated as a crime. When you pin down one of such criminals it should be a case of INTERPOL because they move all over the place. They should be advertised as criminals and get the police to arrest them.
“I had complained about this to a former inspector general of police that this has to do with personal security, community security. I had expected him to reply but there was no response. Not even acknowledgement.
“This should be a collective responsibility. Above all, we should treat it like a crime”.
The representative of the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Festus Okoye, a National Commissioner, posited that fake news constitutes a danger to the forthcoming general elections.
Okoye who also pointed out that the country has an army of angry people with different agenda therefore urged the security operatives to be watchful so as to arrest any threat that may want to spring up.
Okoye who also pointed out that the country has an army of angry people with different agenda therefore urged the security operatives to be watchful so as to arrest any threat that may want to spring up.
The INEC commissioner also challenged Nigerians on the need to be able to draw the line on what they want to believe.
The commission, Okoye said will be undertaking regular briefing as the elections draw near as part of the measures to curb fake news.
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