The
President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration has accused the
proscribed pro-Biafra group of engaging in international scale
propaganda.
File Photo
The Federal Government has accused the Indigenous People of Biafra (
IPOB ) of using fake videos of mass killings, harvested from other
parts of Africa and doctored to look current, to mislead the
international community and win their support.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed,
stated this when he addressed Online Publishers in Lagos on Monday.
”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 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!” he said.
Alhaji Mohammed said some ill-informed foreign individuals are
already trumpeting IPOB’s lies and propaganda and even alleging
genocide, adding: ”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.”
He appealed to the Online Publishers to help counter the fake narrative on the Social Media on the situation in the South-east.
”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,” the Minister said.
He reiterated his earlier statement that IPOB is being sponsored by
a coalition of politically-disgruntled and treasury looters, and that
the organization is a contraption against the Buhari Administration.
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