The House of Representative Committee on Information, National Orientation, Ethics and Values, has warned the Federal Government against clamping down on free speech and press freedom.
This warning is coming after the FG insistence on the regulation of the social media in the country, arguing that Nigeria is sitting on a keg of gunpowder if the issue of fake news is not urgently addressed.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, while appearing before the committee in his defense of the 2021 budget proposed by his ministry, insisted that the next war to be fought in the country and across the world would be the social media.
Lai said, “The biggest challenge facing Nigeria today is fake news and misinformation. Based on that, we dedicated an entire National Council on Information’s meeting to that issue, after which we launched a national campaign against fake news in July 2018.
“The recent #EndSARS war was fought on social media. They mobilized using the social media. The war today revolves around two things. Smartphone and data and these young men don’t even watch television or listen to radio or read newspapers.”
However, a member of the committee, Emmanuel Oghene, warned against the attempt to shut down the social media in the country, adding that the action would be counter-productive.
The Chairman of the committee, Olusegun Odebunmi, then urged the Nigerian government to apply technology that can regulate the social media and still allow the cyber space in the country to work.
