to seek forgiveness from Nigerians for purveying fake news in our country.
The party said the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai
Mohammed, should lead the government and his APC to do the needful,
instead of the lame attempts at whitewashing the government and his party,
even when Nigerians know that they are behind the escalation of fake news
in Nigeria.
Nigerians are aware that the phenomenon of fake news exploded to the
current frightening proportion in Nigeria due to the desperation of the
APC, whose spokespersons deliberately promoted outright lies, hate speech,
insults and threats of violence as tools to gain political power, during
the run-up to the 2015 general elections.
The APC and its officials literarily fouled our media space by
deliberately entrenching falsehood, fabrications, uncouth language and
abuses as “acceptable’ modes of engagement, particularly in the social
media.
The APC and the Buhari Federal Government misled and have been misleading
the media and the public by stating outright lies, half truths and
fabrications in their statements and claims about governance, individuals
and the opposition.
Nigerians are witnesses to several false performance claims by the APC-led
Federal Government including phony political cumming economic recovery and
infrastructure development claims, which they project to be factual, even
when the reality points to the contrary.
Recently, the APC purveyed fake news in its declaration of President
Buhari as winner of APC presidential primary with fictitious 14.8 million
votes, even when there was no contest and no ballot cast.
The deliberate deployment of fake news by the APC in its attempt to smear
the PDP and its members, ended up demarketing our country in the
international arena and eroded the confidence the world had on our markets
and business concerns, resulting in the current dearth of investments,
collapse of businesses, job losses and drop in national productivity.
The APC should be remorseful and realize that their use of fake news has
devastated our economic, political and social development by triggering
fear, public panic and uncertainty; disrupting production, distribution
and marketing chains and weakening foreign and local investors’ confidence
in our system.
The PDP therefore counsels the Minister of Information and Culture, the
Buhari Presidency and the APC to immediately apologize to Nigerians for
purveying fake news and discontinue their shameless enterprise of
beguiling the unsuspecting public with impunity.
Finally, the PDP cautions Nigerians to be wary of the APC and identified
beguilers in the Buhari administration who have have been fully mobilized
to commence the release of fictional and false performance indices with a
view to swaying Nigerians ahead of 2019 general elections.