Naija Collective has urged youths to disassociate themselves from misinformation and disinformation.
This was at a media literacy training for young people, focusing on equipping participants with skills to identify and counter misinformation, disinformation, fake news and propaganda.

The training, which was held at University of Lagos (UNILAG) brought together young people, including students from diverse disciplines, media enthusiasts and journalists.

The workshop, which centres on Digital, Media and Information Literacy, exposed participants on ways unverified information spreads rapidly through the media and how it can mislead unsuspecting consumers.
Facilitator of the training and media communications trainer, Abdulkerimu Oare, said the programme was particularly important for young people because of their active participation in the digital media space.

Oare said: “We now live in a world where information moves faster than it ever moved and we continue to consume so much information and content on a daily basis. The problem, however, is that information shared by anyone could come with different motives or intentions.

“So the whole of this training is to help young people best recognise that not all information that is being shared is clear or plain and to also identify what role some of this information or content being consumed is for.

“It’s been a good session, The response has been very interesting and the participants have been very active. We will be looking at other frameworks.

One of the coordinators of the training, strategic communications expert, Nosike Nwigene, stressed the need to equip young people with knowledge of how the media works, particularly as Nigeria approaches a pre-election period.

Nwigene said young people needed to understand how misinformation and disinformation could be deployed online to manipulate public discourse during elections.

“Young people are very energetic and enthusiastic. I love the audience and it shows they are really learning,” he said.

Nwigene added: “It’s about what they should look out for during elections. Issues of misinformation, and disinformation. A lot of people don’t know to respond to issues of online manipulations that are used to heat up the polity during elections. So it’s all about building resilience towards those things as one of the things we need to do.

“We want young people to take time and think before believing or sharing information. They should ask questions like, ‘Why don’t I see a source? Why does this affect me?’ They should take a step back, listen, double-check and fact-check.”