Nigerian playwright and Nobel laureate, Professor Wale Soyinka, has described those who fabricate false information as cowards who are “sick in the head”.
Mr Soyinka stated this on Wednesday at a conference organised by the British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC, in Abuja with the theme: ‘Nigeria 2019: Countering Fake News’.
During a panel session, Mr Soyinka said fake news is real and would possibly cause World War III and would be masterminded by a Nigerian.
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“Basically, I think the commonality is that those who create fake news are sick in the head and they are also cowards because they lack a conviction of their own and so they transfer to other people what they really are thinking,” Mr Soyinka said.
DAILY NIGERIAN reports that the conference tagged: ‘Beyond Fake News’, gathered media and political figures to discuss how to prevent the distortion of facts during and after the election period.
The conference was attended by the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo who was the Keynote Speaker, Garba Shehu, the Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari, Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC Chairman Mahmud Yakubu who was represented by INEC Commissioner Festus Okoye, President of the Nigeria Guild of Editors and Editor-In-Chief of New Telegraph newspaper and many other dignitaries.
