By ‘Kunle ADEBAJO.

THOUGH news reports published on Monday quoted the Information Minister Lai Mohammed, saying Nigeria is the “safest and freest country” to live in the world, there is no record showing he made this statement.

“Nigeria is safest country to live in the world – Lai Mohammed,” Daily Post’s headline read before replacing “safest” with “freest”.

“The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has described Nigeria as the freest country to live in the world,” the online paper reported, stating that the comment was made while the minister received Jyrki Pulkkimen, the Finnish Ambassador to Nigeria and his team.

A similar report was published by Pulse. “Despite the increasing insecurity situation in Nigeria, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has described Nigeria as the safest country to live in the world,” Pulse reported.

The Nation also credited the minister with this statement. But it has pulled down the publication, though the link is still on its social media platforms. While it has been liked 210 times and retweeted by 73 users on Twitter, on Facebook it gathered over 3,200 comments, was shared by over 2,800 users, and liked by over 1,800.

None of the reports provided a direct quote from Mohammed’s speech, and checks by The ICIR show that he did not in fact describe Nigeria as the safest and freest country in the world. At least, these descriptions were not contained in a press statement released yesterday by Segun Adeyemi, the special assistant to the president under the office of the minister of information and culture.

The ICIR also obtained a complete recording of the minister’s speech at the meeting and saw the only time he mentioned safety was with respect to the social media.

“If we want to stifle the media, we want to violate everybody’s human rights, we are not going to call the same stakeholders in human rights, media to a roundtable conference on how do we go about sanitising the social media; because as we speak today we will be meeting later in the month with leaders of the media, civil society, security and other stakeholders on how do we sanitise our social media and make our social media safe for all,” he said.

He also did not say Nigeria is the freest country but “one of the freest countries to live in the world”.

Joe Mutah, chief press secretary to the information minister, told The ICIR, the reports are a “practical example” of misrepresentation in the media.

He said the context of Mohammed’s comments was press freedom, not security.

“The minister said Nigeria has the freest environment to operate as journalists,” he said.

“We are not talking about security, we are talking about press freedom. It is a discussion about the government not going out of its way to gag the press. Let the country have a free press; isn’t that the expression we use?”

Meanwhile, Nigeria is neither one of the safest places to live nor one of the freest countries in the world for journalists. Rather, it qualifies more appropriately as one of the worst-performing.

The 2019 Global Peace Index, which measures societal safety, security, and conflict, ranks Nigeria 148th out of 163 countries. And, according to the 2019 World Press Freedom Index, the country is ranked 120th out of a total of 180 countries.

Below is the information minister’s full speech:

Your Excellencies, it’s quite a pleasure to want to receive the Finland Ambassador to Nigeria… You will be wondering why do I have the entire gamut of my information and creative industry, for the simple reason that this platform is about innovation. It’s about the creative industry, it’s about information, and that is why I brought the CEOs of the various creative industry, information to witness this particular courtesy visit.

My understanding of the Freedom Online Coalition is that it is a coalition of a body of countries, like-minded, and whose objective is actually human rights, privacy, security, and trust. And as of today there about 31 members and only three so far from Africa, Tanzania, Ghana, and I think Tunisia. I don’t know what yardstick was used to describe Nigeria as not a like-minded country, I think {inaudible} explain to us.

When I look at the objectives of the FOC, I think you’ve come to preach to the converted already. When it comes to innovation, this administration, and I am glad that the ambassador has also confirmed that when it comes to innovation, Nigeria is probably the African hub for innovation. And this is not by accident, because we have a pool of very young, talented, and ambitious young people in Nigeria. And I think as recently as three months ago, in Dubai, a Nigerian came first in innovation.

We intend to push this because when you look at the creative industry in particular which is the fastest-growing part of the economy, which employs the second largest number of people after agriculture, you can see why innovation and technology is very important to this administration. And we have put together legislation and other incentives to encourage young men and women in innovative technology.

Now, I know that the ambassador said whatever is going to be tolerated, you know, offline should be tolerated online, and that’s why the issue of human rights has come. I think for us in Nigeria, respect for human rights is a cardinal principle of not just our constitution but day-to-day governance. And I am yet to see any country with the kind of population we have, with the kind of multi-values, multi-culture, multi-religion, that has at the same time striven to balance, you know, national security with freedom of the press and freedom of the media.

I make bold to say that this administration, in particular, has no intention and does not tamper with the freedom of speech or freedom of individuals. But more often than not, we do confuse activists and politicians, we confuse them with journalists. And this is the point we made everywhere we went, that there is a difference between journalists and activists. At the same time, every country in the world, the first preoccupation of that country is the preservation of the people. So, yes, once in a while, there might be need to draw that gap, let there be a balance between national security and the freedom of the press or of the individual. But I make bold to say that Nigeria is one of the freest countries to live in the world. 

I know you spoke about freedom and human rights. Yes, it is true that we especially in this ministry, we’ve watched with some trepidation the social media front, and we see how some people have tried to abuse the new technology to cause disaffection, especially pushing fake news and hate speech. In a country where you have many religions, many ethnicities, many ethnic groups, many values, the government cannot fold its arms and see some unguarded individuals trying to take advantage of the differences in values to cause disharmony; and this is why this ministry, in particular, decided that it is important to sanitise the social media scene.

Sanitisation does not necessarily mean legislation, and it does not mean by any imagination stifling of the press or the media, no. We are going to have a media as free as anywhere in the world, but we must have a responsibly free media and that is our goal. Hate speech, fake news, disinformation have done more to destabilise the globe than any plague in recent times. And examples abound within Nigeria and outside Nigeria. Outside Nigeria, the classic case is the Rwandan genocide, where over 800,000 lives were lost within a short period just to hate speech, false news, fake news, and disinformation. So our attempt to sanitise the social media is not at all an attempt to stifle the media. I want to make this very clear.

If we want to stifle the media, we want to violate everybody’s human rights, we are not going to call the same stakeholders in human rights, media to a roundtable conference on how do we go about sanitising the social media; because as we speak today we will be meeting later in the month with leaders of the media, civil society, security and other stakeholders on how do we sanitise our social media and make our social media safe for all. How do we ensure that people do not {inaudible} to cause disharmony in the country; so that is all that is about our social media regulation. It is not about stifling the media, it is not about violating anybody’s human rights. But it’s out own response to a responsible social media and we are not alone in this; I know that France, I know that the UK, I know that Pakistan, China, Japan all have one way or the other trying to regulate the social media, without necessarily tampering with the freedom of the individual or the media. 

And just like a parliamentarian said in France, whatever is not tolerated on the streets should not be tolerated online, which is the reverse of what the ambassador talked about human rights. So we are very concerned, very committed about sanitising the social media. Now, I said at the beginning that you’ve come out here to preach to the converted. Just before we came in, in our private meeting, he expressed his fears of exactly what the world is going through, disinformation, fake news, and hate speech. And I want to say here that, long before it became popular, this administration started fighting hate speech and fake news. We started in 2017, and we devoted an entire national conference on information to address the issue of hate speech because we saw it very early that it is probably the biggest threat the military of this country will face.

We’ve also, since 2018, launched the national campaign on fake news by going to various news organisations, media houses, and signing them on to join us in our fight against fake news. And interestingly enough, when I was discussing with the Ambassador for Innovation, he says another aspect which bothers the Freedom Online Coalition is the deliberate denial online about the existence of climate change, and I said that is strange to us here because we are the victims of climate change. We are the victims of climate change, not just because it affects our environment but it also affects our economy, it affects the peace and stability of the country, it affects social interaction.

Look at Lake Chad, some 50 years ago, it covered some 25,000 square km, and supported livelihood in seven countries. But today, the same Lake Chad has shrunk by 90 per cent, and that means that all those about 50 major tribes that were dependent on the Lake Chad now have to look elsewhere for sustenance. And part of the conflicts we witness in Nigeria, with herdsmen-farmers clash, was directly also traceable to the dwindling water vapour in the Lake Chad, because it meant then that those pastoralists that depended on the Lake Chad to rear their cattle had to look elsewhere in the South and in the process there were this conflicts. So for us in Nigeria, climate change is real because it has affected our economy, it has affected our environment, it is affecting our politics and our stability; and we would join hands with the Freedom Online Coalition to ensure that those denialists on climate change that we tackle them robustly because we have seen, we have been victims of climate change and we know it is real. 

Of course, we have established the fact that our creative industry, especially the film and music industry, film, music, fashion, photography, and innovative technology are the fastest moving sectors of our economy. And today the film industry alone employs about one million people and contributes about 1.4 per cent of our GDP, but we look forward to next two, three years when another one and a half million people will be employed by the same sector and they will be able to contribute about 3.5 per cent to the GDP.

But the most important thing about our creative industry is its ability to employ more people. Like I said, after agriculture, it employs the largest number of people, and mostly the young. This is a great country for anybody to come and invest in the creative industry. In 2014, we had just about 23 cinema houses and they were about 51. Today, we have about 100 screens; but a population of 200 million people, we need a minimum of 1000 cinema houses and about 16,000 screens. So this is an area where we will be looking for investment and the investors will actually smile to the bank. 

Our music industry has also grown amazingly from $23 million revenue in 2014 and by 2021 we will be looking at recouping about $56 million in revenue. Our fashion industry is probably one of the most expansive in the world. That is another area we can look forward to collaboration from other countries.

So, once again, I welcome the two ambassadors. I pledge our preparedness to work with the Freedom Online Coalition and we stand shoulder-to-shoulder with you in your fight against disinformation and in your fight against fake news and in your fight against hate speech. I thank you very much.

By ‘Kunle ADEBAJO.

THE CIRCUMSTANCES of former presidential aspirant Omoyele Sowore’s rearrest on Friday have led many to speculate that the Department of State Services (DSS) intends to cause him harm—or that it already has. But there is no reliable information backing any of these claims.

“Watch this video and repeat it over and over again then you will know that Sowore has been poisoned via injection inside the courtroom,” a Twitter user, @Napalivia, wrote assuredly on Saturday. “After the DSS undercover agent successfully injected the poison in Sowore, the very guy that pinned him down quickly released him.”

But not all insinuations about Sowore’s health condition were based strictly on an analysis of the videos. Also on Saturday, Farooq Kperogi, a columnist and Assistant Professor of Communication at Kennesaw State University, wrote that Sahara Reporters (SR), a news agency started by Sowore in 2006, confirmed that its founder is gravely ill.

“Omoyele Sowore MUST NOT DIE in Buhari’s gulag! There’re indications that he was injected with poison in the court yesterday,” Kperogi wrote on Facebook. “Video clips affirm this. Sahara Reporters also said he’s gravely ill now. People of conscience should insist that the DSS bring him out to ascertain his state of health NOW.”

His post has attracted 383 reactions, 46 comments, and has been shared 117 times. It has also been reposted by others on platforms such as Twitter and a news blog.

No such claim in report

Sahara Reporters had, on Friday, reported that there are “renewed fears over Sowore’s safety as strange man hits journalist in neck with unknown substance in courtroom.” This is the closest publication to the attribution made but a read through showed that it does not describe Sowore as gravely ill.

The online newspaper only recounted the events inside the courtroom after the proceedings as captured in various videos, reported that there is growing fear over Sowore’s state of health, and repeated Sowore’s earlier allegation about plans to kill him.

An advanced search through Sahara Reporters’ Twitter account also revealed that, from the beginning of December, the word “poison” has appeared only once from an unrelated report published on the 4th, “sick” has appeared once in an op-ed written by Erasmus Ikhide, and neither “gravely” nor “ill” have been used recently.

SR editor: Sowore in good condition but … 

The editor of Sahara Reporters, Eric Dumo, told The ICIR on Monday that the information available to him, in fact, is that Sowore is currently in good condition. He also said the media organisation, like everyone else, cannot confirm claims that he was poisoned.

“No, the report wasn’t about him being ill,” he said.

“There were fears about his safety. We published that story because, from that video that has gone viral, if you look at it, you see there is a man struggling under him in the court and somebody, we don’t know who that person is, from behind hit Sowore on the neck and immediately Sowore sprung up and was asking him, ‘Why did you hit me? What did you hit me with?’

“So, that raised some fears that he could have been injected with some unknown substance. But we cannot also verify. We cannot also completely or 100 per cent say this is the fact, but that video raised fears among his supporters, family members.”

He said Sowore is fine “for now” and is not under any threat.

“That report was just reacting to that incident. The report didn’t confirm that we are so sure he was injected… Nobody can confirm that indeed he was injected with any dangerous substance. But as we speak he is in a very good condition. He is not sick or under threat.”

The Sahara Reporters editor, however, stressed that Sowore nevertheless needs medical attention having been in detention for very long.

“This is a man who has been in detention for over 126 days and he has not had access to any doctor or any form of medical care. So it is natural that his health may not be in top shape,” he said.

“But we don’t have any report of his medical state at this time, but from all we have seen it is obvious that the man will need a lot of medical attention having been in detention for that long.”

While Sowore may be safe and sound though, his prolonged detention by the DSS despite court orders granting him bail may have worsened the health condition of his mother, Esther Sowore.

“My mind is disturbed that he has not been allowed to go for medical care since August,” she said in an interview with Objective Media TV last week.

“I am a widow, release my son. I cannot eat, I cannot sleep and it is affecting my health. Please release Omoyele Sowore, my son. He is not a criminal.”

Verdict

It is incorrect that Sahara Reporters said Sowore is “gravely ill now”. This claim was not made in any of its recent reports and has been denied by the online paper’s editor.

By ‘Kunle ADEBAJO.

NIGERIA’s Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Dame Pauline Tallen, according to a report, said last week that two (2) million Nigerians are raped every year, but there is no reliable public data to support or disprove this claim.

“The Federal Government on Monday launched the Sex Offenders register to tackle issues of rape in Nigeria, saying the over two million Nigerian girls and women being raped annually is unacceptable,” the Daily Trust wrote in two separate reports.

“Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development (FMWASD), Dame Pauline Tallen, disclosed this in Abuja while unveiling the register at the 2019 International Day for Elimination of Violence Against Women, saying there cannot be any justification for rape.”

When we asked the Director of Press at the Ministry of Women Affairs, Shehu Maikai, about the report, he said he could neither confirm whether the minister truly made the claim nor that it is true because he does not have “the statistics readily available”. He, however, promised to find out and share his discovery with The ICIR. (We will update this report once that happens.)

As far back as in 2011, Caroline Ajie, a human rights lawyer, made a similar claim by estimating that “at least 2 million Nigerian girls experience sexual abuse annually and that only 28 per cent of rape cases are reported”. It is not clear what the estimate is based on.

What is reported to the police

Latest statistics from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) which captures the number of police-recorded offences of rape and sexual violence in various countries up till 2010 does not include figures on Nigeria. This caused Amnesty International, in its 2006 country report of Nigeria to complain that “the Federal Government does not make public any records it holds of incidents of gender-based violence in general nor of rape in particular”.

Since this period, however, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has twice released a breakdown of crime statistics in the country—in 2016 and 2017.

The 2016 report does not specify how many cases of rape were reported but instead states that there were 45,554 cases of “offences against persons”. These include murder, manslaughter, infanticide, concealment of birth, rape and other physical abuse, and so on.

In 2017, the NBS went a step further by providing statistics for specific crimes. According to the statistical agency, that year, 2,279 cases of “rape and indecent assault” were recorded by police across the country.

Figures from the Nigerian Correctional Service on “prison admission by type of offence” are, however, higher. In 2013, 5,797 Nigerians were admitted for “sex offences”. In 2014, this figure dropped to 4,436. And by the second quarter of 2015, the figure was 1,621.

Records from other countries show that in South Africa, 41,583 cases of rape were recorded in 2018/19 and 52,420 cases of sexual offences generally; and at least 38,947 cases of rape were recorded in India in 2016. Each year in the United States, there are on average 433,648 victims of rape and sexual assault—the world’s highest in absolute terms.

Police reports don’t show the full picture

For various reasons, including the fear of stigmatisation, police extortion, and a lack of trust in the criminal justice system, the vast majority of sexual assault victims do not make formal reports at police stations.

In the US according to the National Crime Victimization Survey conducted by the Justice Department, out of every 1000 cases of sexual assault, only 230 (23 per cent) are reported to the police.

In the United Kingdom, official statistics on sexual violence released by the Ministry of Justice, Office for National Statistics, and Home Office revealed that only about 15 per cent of people who experience sexual assault report to the police.

A public opinion poll conducted by NOIPolls in 2019 shows that underreporting is also a problem in Nigeria. One academic study estimates that only two of 40 cases of rape (five per cent) are reported as a result of “arduous legal requirements needed to prove the cases and the associated stigma”.

Conclusion

There is no evidence supporting the claim attributed to the Women Affairs minister that up to two million Nigerians are raped or sexually assaulted every year.

Most recent statistics from the NBS state that 2,279 cases of rape and indecent assault were reported to the police in 2017. And the Nigerian Correctional Service has said 4,436 people were jailed for sex-related crimes in 2014.

Many studies have, however, established that official records are grossly inadequate in offering insights into the prevalence of sexual violence across the world.