Why We Engaged Parties, Others Over Fake News On Social Media  – NPC

The National Peace Committee (NPC) has tasked political parties and candidates to pay more attention and address fake news as well as inciting messages on social media emanating from their stables ahead of the 2023 general election.

Head of the secretariat of NPC, Rev Father Atta Barkindo, stated this during a workshop for political parties, civil society organisations, the media and other stakeholders titled, “The role and impact of digital technologies in facilitating peaceful elections in Nigeria.”

The two-day training programme in Abuja was organised by the National Peace Committee (NPC) in collaboration with the Kofi Annan Foundation and the Kukah Centre.

Barkindo said they decided to embark on the workshop because they discovered the need to hold candidates and political parties to account on the issue of social media and fake news as part of the peace accord process.

“And so the reason why we assembled particularly the executives of the political parties is to see how we can sit with them; number one, to strengthen the aspect of social media and fake news as part of the peace pact that political parties and candidates will sign on to; and number two as you can see, by tomorrow, so that we can now get to develop an accountability mechanism. So that if, as most of the speakers have already spoken, political parties, different platforms, candidates, you know, deploy fake news in announcing fake results in promoting hate speech in creating polarization and all that, how can they be held accountable?

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“And that accountability mechanism is going to be developed by the political parties signed on to by them, they are also going to become part of the peace accord and in that way, they have already submitted themselves to that accountability strategy,” he said.

Some panelists at the event decried the deliberate use of social media to spread fake news ahead of the 2023 general elections.

Head, Anglophone West Africa/Public Policy, Facebook, Adaora Ikenze, noted that the aim of the gathering is to fashion out a system of having a civil way of engagement during the election, adding that political actors should desist from sponsoring contents targeted at exploiting the weak and vulnerable through false news.

Director of CDD, West Africa, Idayat Hassan, warned against the digital interference in our electoral system by foreign countries. She however noted the need for increased sensitisation on the impact of fake news ahead of the 2023 elections.