Disinformation deliberately falsifies information to create alternate impressions far from the truth and facts. This information can be fabricated and manipulated audio or visual content to start rumours, mislead the public, and perpetuate lies. Nigeria’s rising waves of disinformation have been attributed to increasing social media usage and low entry barriers for content creators and information consumers using mass communication tools. There has been clear evidence that digital disinformation has gained roots in Nigeria’s domestic political landscape. the 2015 and 2019 general elections were smeared with false information, often coordinated and generated emotional reactions from the public.
Most recently the 2019 elections, political parties have been involved in disseminating information, engaging in rally campaigns to shape public views and influencing people’s choices and interests. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) once reported that photos and written posts, including videos, have been shared on social media platforms, notably Facebook and WhatsApp, spreading unsubstantiated rumors about the candidates. One notable evidence of disinformation provided to the public is the news that the current president of Nigeria, Mohammed Buhari, is dead and replaced by a clone from Sudan.
Addressing the challenges of disinformation and controlling the spread of wrong information on the national scale is possible using the influence of policymakers. In Nigeria, the government and its legislative arms have managed these challenges by providing laws and regulating information flows and resources to protect Nigerians and businesses. The Nigerian governments, especially the legislative arms, have made provisions for rules and regulations that address the challenges of misleading information. Many of these laws and regulations were enacted when the words “disinformation, misinformation and fake news” had not gone mainstream. The standard terms used within the available provisions of the law were “misleading statement” and “defamations”.
Nigeria has variant laws, acts, codes and regulations that were created and subsequently modified to maintain their validity and upgrade the contents to meet current social, political and economic challenges. A good number of them detailed information use, publication, and management. For instance, the Nigerian Constitution is the most important law, which provides every citizen with its validity. Nigerian Constitution provides citizens with their fundamental human right, the right to privacy. Section 37 of the Constitution guarantees privacy protections to citizens in their homes, correspondence, telephone conversations and telegraphic communications.
There are other legal frameworks such as The Criminal Code Act, Penal Code, Freedom of Information Act, the infamous proposed Protection from Internet Falsehood and Manipulation Bill (Anti-Social Media Bill), The Data Protection Bill and Digital Rights and Freedom Bill, The Electoral Act, The Broadcasting Code of Conduct and The Nigeria Press Council Act.
All these legal frameworks contain elements of information management, indicating that the Nigerian government and other regulatory bodies are positioned to prevent the spread of false information. For instance, the Nigerian legislative chamber could not pass a bill that targets the prevention of falsehoods and manipulation of the internet as a tool to project false narratives. The Bill has five notable objectives, first is to prevent the promotion of false statements, the second is to put an end to the financing of online media that transmit false statements, the third is to create a measure to detect and control inauthentic behaviours, fourth is similar to the requirement of the Freedom of Information Act and the fifth is the possibility of sanctions for offenders.
To understand the prevalence, possible growth, and declination in the frequency of disinformation, it is better to consider past information that has come out as false and misleading. In 2014, during the uprising of Ebola, the Lagos State healthcare team had to work towards suppressing incorrect information, especially on preventing and treating the novel disease. Unverified information on the prevention of Ebola using salt and water had spread to almost every corner of the country.
In Nigeria, disinformation trends in politics; it has been used to distract people and change public discourse and health; the era of the COVID-19 pandemic surge has been used to spread false health information to the public to the point that the World Health Organisation (WHO) create a tag “infodemic”. Disinformation comes in various formats, videos, text, photos, animation, newspapers, posters, billboards, etc. The diversity of content formats makes spreading false and misleading statements viral. Information can appear in audio, especially from radio stations, which can broadcast information that is not valid, knowingly or unknowingly. Recently, during World Radio Day, the Federal Government of Nigeria used the opportunity to encourage radio stations across the country to uphold listeners’ trust and avoid spreading fake news.
As we observe the run up to 2023 general elections in Nigeria, we know that the primary instigators and agents of disinformation in Nigeria are political support groups, social media influencers and trolls and the mass media. There have been accounts created with a false or different name to spread false and misleading information. However, there has been an influence of foreign actors in some ways. Meanwhile, disinformation is primarily channelled using social media platforms and mainstream media as they are the source of information on which the large population depends to be abreast of the situations around them.
The effects of disinformation can linger for some time on democracy and its actors. It can hamper freedom of opinions and expressions, redefine the information reliability and plurality, right to democratic participation, and the individual right to privacy.
By: Charles Ikem & Abiola Bolarinwa
Read the full report here: Disinformation Pathways & Effects: Case studies from five African countries https://cipesa.org/?wpfb_dl=497
Watch the video on Tackling Disinformation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq5v6i1LNaY
Report on Tackling Disinformation: https://bit.ly/3oABx5Z