Social media has virtually become a ground for spreading baseless and unconfirmed news that would temper Nigerians to series of crises. Some unscrupulous media usage who don’t want peace and unity in our country through disseminating unverified news ranging from killings people in a different part of the country, tribal conflicts, and so forth. They would share the said unauthentic news whether true or not because they don’t want to see Nigerians living in harmony regardless of religious or ethnic differences.
However, fake news is being shared on the media while the government keeps mute without bringing the agents of the said news to book, to serve as a deterrent to others. Furthermore, many sad incidents happen but peddlers of fake news add flame to the said sad happenings. For instance, a sad development occurs in the southern or northern region of this country, as a result of these bad elements if one or five people are killed, they would intentionally start spreading that ten people have been killed. As such, our country would find itself in turmoil.
Nevertheless, fake news is one of the roots of the major cause of the crises in this country. In a nutshell, I would like to call on the government to urgently take some measures to regulating the social media as it is one of the major tools that causes disunity of the country.
Rotiaf Saheeb,
Department of the Mass Communication
University of Maiduguri
