A group, the Arewa Economic Advancement Campaign (Area-C), has berated the publishers of Kaduna-based Desert Herald newspaper over the publication of “fake news of salaries diversion at the National Board for Arabic and Islamic Studies (NBAIS)”.
In a statement issued in Kaduna and signed by its Director of Public Education, Malam Mukhtar Musa Kawo, the group said it was due to “professional laziness” that the reporters of Desert Herald failed to cross-check the fact that “the office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (AGF) is the federal government’s agency saddled with the responsibility of payment of such salaries and not the NBAIS. It is even more worrisome that even the management of such a newspaper company does not know this simple fact.
“It is unfortunate that in this era of Freedom of Information (FOI), Desert Herald could not do a simple homework of confirming how the NBAIS under Professor Muhammad Abdullahi Shafiu has been operating as an institution of public service.”
Area-C, in the statement, advised Desert Herald management to desist from running news stories that are not verifiable, in order not to further worsen “the cancer of fake news by fringe newspapers and magazines in the country.
“Unless Desert Herald is working for shadowy interest groups, bent on undermining the NBAIS under Professor Shafiu, this fake news is totally uncalled for. We are disturbed that a number of similar junk news stories about the Nigeria Customs and the Nigeria Immigration Services were recently linked to the Desert Herald and we wonder why the management has failed to learn some ethical/professional lessons from these two previous unethical professional/editorial judgements.”
The group called on the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) and the Nigeria Guild of Editors (NGE) to call Desert Herald to order, “It only to serve as a deterrent to other news media organisations that would like rush to the press with unverified news stories.”
The group described as “very matured,” the recent clarification that the Acting Registrar, Professor Muhammad Abdullahi Shafiu, has offered on the matter.
