Nigeria’s Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, has issued a warning against the proliferation of misinformation on social media, particularly concerning the alleged creation of new states and the circulation of a fake letter implying that the son of Ibrahim Babangida rejected a political appointment.
On Monday, a letter implying that Muhammad Babangida rejected the appointment offered by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to head the Bank of Agriculture (BOA) went viral. Babangida, however, distanced himself from the letter, describing it as false, malicious, and a deliberate effort to mislead the public.
Other reports suggested that the Senate had approved the creation of 12 new states across the country’s six geopolitical zones. The claim has been refuted by the Senate.
Citing these instances, Akpabio expressed concern during a plenary session about the spread of misinformation on social media platforms.
“I’ve always said that social media is garbage-in, garbage-out. I hope that the way Africans use social media will not disrupt society. That’s my only hope because you’ll see that even the appointments we made, they would go and use fake letterhead paper and write that a person had rejected their appointment.
“And then they will now rush to people they know to go and lobby for that same appointment when the person in question does not even know that he has rejected their appointment,” said Akpabio.
Speaking about claims of the creation of 12 new states, the Senate President clarified that no proposal for establishing a new state has gone through any of the procedures required for creating new states as enshrined in the constitution.
“So I’ve seen some communities holding meetings on how they are going to develop their new states because social media said states have been created for them.
“How many, they said, they have created 12 new states. Unfortunately, not one of their proposals has reached a stage where we can even say we have finished zonal deliberations or even finished national deliberations,” he added.
