This gathering is also important because even before the 2023 election, we have seen the weaponisation of falsehood as an instrument of politics in Nigeria. Now, people will go and pick images from Somalia, images from Chad, images from where there is war raftage, and put an address to it in Nigeria in order to create misinformation.
By Cyril Mbah, Abuja
The Presidency and the office of the National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) on Friday hosted the party’s zonal and state publicity secretaries to a one-day seminar on the theme; “Communicating the Renewed Hope Agenda Effectively” to prepare the party’s image makers for more active publicity role ahead of the 2027 general elections.
The well attended workshop, which took place at Destination Hotel, N’djamena Crescent, Wuse 11, was addressed by the State House image makers led by Mr. Bayo Onanuga, Senior Special Assistant on Information and Strategy, the APC national officers, and some government officials.
Addressing the gathering, Onanuga stated that misinformation on social media was intended to demonise the present administration even though it has brought lots of investments into the country in major sectors of the economy.
Onanuga pointed out that the administration works round the clock to boost the economy to make life better for Nigerian citizens.
He listed agriculture and the solid mineral sectors as some of the areas where the government has excelled despite inheriting a dead economy.
APC Acting National Chairman, Alhaji Ali Dalori, reminded the publicity officers of the enormous responsibility of effectively selling the achievements of the present administration to the public and charged them to be steadfast and committed in publicising the gains of the Renewed Hope Agenda without fear.
Speaking also at the occasion, the APC National Secretary, Ajibola Basiru, hoped that the seminar would expose the publicity secretaries to modern ways of diseminating Information through informed writups on government policies and programmes to enable the public understand the benefits of such programmes to the development processes.
According to the scribe, “We must focus our communication on what we are doing with the economy and how well the economy is doing under this government. We must also show that despite the dooms day predictions, the Naira is doing well internationally.
“This gathering is also important because even before the 2023 election, we have seen the weaponisation of falsehood as an instrument of politics in Nigeria. Now, people will go and pick images from Somalia, images from Chad, images from where there is war raftage, and put an address to it in Nigeria in order to create misinformation.
“We also have a situation where people who have had the opportunity of governing the sub-national, and without any achievement beyond establishment, their factory will come and be telling us what happened in China, in Malaysia, when at the backyard of their own yard, their community is ravaged with floods, and they did not put a single school building for 8 years of administration.
“So, this gathering is important for us to be able to tackle those who have also weaponised ethnicity. Growing up in Nigeria, ethnic faultline is not as pronounced as it has been made ahead of the 2023 election, and unfortunately, they are still doing carryover of that post-2023 election.
“Another front line is that of religion. Weaponisation of religion on the ground of politics. Even people whose santimonious attitude is very dubious now try to wear the toga of religion for the purpose of political ascendancy.
“These are part of the efforts that we need to put in place. How do we effectively tackle the weaponisation of falsehoods, weaponisation of ethnicity, and weaponisation of religious bigotry in our country. We also need clear, concise information, and I want to give this as a form of advice, that it is not out of place that we begin to look at having radio programmes in all the states of the federation, that will be giving an hour, which will be sponsored every week to X-ray what the administration is doing at the national level and the sub-national level.
“I also want to address one fact we don’t seem to look into when we talk about Nigeria. Nigeria is not a unitary system. So, the question of achievement of our administration should not just be the achievement of the Federal Government. It should also be the achievement of the sub-national and state governments and the achievement of the local governments,” the national secretary charged.
The workshop was attended by APC publicity secretaries from the 36 states of the federation and the six area council of Abuja..
