THE Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) has unveiled an election war room to tackle misinformation and fish out its purveyors ahead of Nigeria’s 2023 elections.
CDD director, Idayat Hassan, disclosed this in a statement on Friday.
She said the CDD’s war room will play an important role in making the 2023 elections free, fair and credible.
Hassan noted that the CDD will publish weekly reports about its findings on misinformation.
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“The Centre for Democracy and Development has unveiled an Election War Room for tackling disinformation, misinformation and the activities of bad actors ahead of the 2023 general elections in Nigeria.
“Africa’s largest democracy is going into what many hope will be the country’s turning point election. As part of its mandate to help the nation deliver free, fair and credible elections, CDD’s Election War Room will play an important role in making this election free from the narrative influence of bad actors.
“On a weekly basis, our team of detailed, vibrant, and tech-savvy youths will publish a brief about our findings within the disinformation and fact-checking ecosystem in Nigeria,” the statement partly reads.
She explained that the team is already monitoring all political players, news organizations, security agencies, fact-checkers, electoral umpire and all other stakeholders.
She added: “Our weekly briefs will arm Nigerians with verifiable information on possible points of misinformation and disinformation, provide insight into controversial and contentious issues; and prepare citizens for expected waves of disinformation within the political arena.
“Why is this important? In the 2019 election, disinformation spread across northern Nigeria claiming a coalition formed by the LGBTQ community in Nigeria had endorsed Atiku Abubakar, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), for president.
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“In the same election year, doctored images were shared across social media alongside claims that Muhammadu Buhari, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), had died and was replaced by a body double infamously known as Jibril of Sudan. With the benefit of hindsight, both claims were false.”
She explained that the election War Room will deal with such disinformation by highlighting seeders and bad actors who begin and drive such narratives across the major social media platforms.
“The team will also produce pre-bunks to act as fact shields against misinformation ahead of the elections. In this War Room, our goal is simple: to make this the most factual elections in Nigeria’s history,” she concluded.
Nurudeen Akewushola is a fact-checker with FactCheckHub. He has authored several fact checks which have contributed to the fight against information disorder. You can reach him via [email protected] and @NurudeenAkewus1 via Twitter.
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