The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has urged Nigerians in the diaspora not to believe everything they read on the social media about happenings in the country, saying most of what emanates from the social media is fake news.
Addressing the staff of the Nigerian Embassy to the United States in Washington, DC, on Friday, the Minister said they should rely on credible sources for news from home.
He advised them to download the FGN-iAPP on their mobile devices in order to have access to authentic Nigerian news.
Alhaji Mohammed said the federal government recently launched the National Campaign Against Fake News in order to stem the spread of false and misleading information, which is capable of threatening the peace and security of the country.
The Minister, who is in the US to interact with past and current senior US government officials and stakeholders in the US policy on Africa, under the auspices of the think tank Atlantic Council, said the picture being painted in some circles of an ethno-religious crisis in Nigeria is far from the truth.
”Despite such crises as the farmers-herders clashes and communal conflicts, Nigerians – for the most part – are living together harmoniously. Nigeria is not at war,” he said.
Alhaji Mohammed said the tempo of the killings arising from the farmers-herders crisis is going down, and that the government is committed to ending the incessant clashes once and for all.
Earlier, the Nigerian Ambassador to the US, Ambassador Sylvanus Nsofor, had formally welcomed the Minister to the Embassy.
