Members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) are using fake videos of mass killings, harvested from other parts of Africa, to mislead the international community, the Nigerian Government has alleged.
Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture Lai Mohammed stated this when he addressed Online Publishers in Lagos on Monday.
”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,” the minister said.
”Some of the tools that have been employed by IPOB include blatant lies and cheap propaganda, and the medium of choice for the organisation 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 added.
He appealed to the Online Publishers to help counter the fake narrative on the Social Media on the situation in the Southeast
”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,” he said.
