You have started again! You should know that PR is not a licence to support atrocities. Innocent persons (at Lekki) were deliberately murdered by your clients (Nigerian Army) and for you, profit is more important than those souls.
– Omoyele Sowore, Publisher of Sahara Reporters.

The above was a text message sent to me by my good friend, Omoyele Sowore after PRNigeria published a 204-page book titled, 101 Fake News on EndSARS” and commenced the serialisation of some of the blunders and inconsistencies contained in the recently submitted report of the Lagos State EndSARS panel chaired by Retired Justice Doris Okuwobi.

In fairness to Sowore, he has been consistent in his brand of activism through citizen journalism. But in our many debates, I have always explained to him that the public relations approach through fact-seeking and efforts at mutual understanding are better ways of managing difficult situations.

I have received similar concerns from people of goodwill and even from unknown individuals, who claim I am on the payroll of the Nigerian Army, and that all the things we do at PRNigeria are for pecuniary gains. I am therefore compelled to clear the erroneous impression about PRNigerias relationship with the Nigerian Army and our position on the EndSARS panel report.

First, while PR is a profitable business in the communications practice, in which a practitioner legitimately deserves a remuneration, we have never had a client-relationship with the Nigerian Army, since the emergence of General Tukuru Buratai as the Chief of Army Staff in 2015. The Nigerian Army is NOT our client but one of the stakeholders in the brand of journalism we practice.

In fact, PRNigeria has never been engaged directly or indirectly by the Nigerian Army in the last six years, but we enjoy the fact of having access to authoritative and sometimes sensitive information from credible authorities and reliable sources in the sector to authenticate our reports.

Having had a good working relationship with all the Army spokespersons, from Brigadier Generals Sani Kukasheka, Sagir Musa, Mohammed Yerima to the incumbent, Onyema Nwachukwu, they are living witnesses to the professional integrity of our communication outfit.

Some public commentators have accused us not a few times of excessively defending the Army, especially General Buratai, the past Army Chief who is now the Nigerian Ambassador to Benin Republic. They ignore the fact that objective reportage is not about defending anyone but providing accurate, timely and credible information. While we objectively reported the clearance of Buratai over the Dubai properties saga and highlighted his earlier successes in decimating Boko Haram terrorists and institutional accomplishments, we were yet very critical of the Nigerian Army over the Zaria massacre of 2015, the unjust retirement of the Army 38 in 2016, the closure of the offices of Daily Trust newspapers in 2019, the killing of Police officers by soldiers in Taraba in 2019, and the tenure elongation of military chiefs in 2020, among others.

Just as the critics attack us, so do the apologists on the other side. For instance, some Army media consultants sponsored a number of articles in several media houses claiming that we are financiers and masterminds of the Boko Haram insurgency. Not only did we report them to the security and intelligence services, but we also sued the accusers in a court of law, to clear our names.

Our support for the military and intelligence services, especially the Nigerian Army, is our own way of showing patriotism in the defence of national interests when doing so could deny us of securing grants from foreign interests. Our editorial policy does not glorify the activities of enemies of the state. We deliberately censor their propaganda by supporting the gallantry of Nigerian security against violent agitations, banditry, terrorism among others.

The Chief of Military Intelligence and now Chief of Defence Intelligence, General Samuel Adebayo, can testify to the fact that while we were not engaged to provide any crisis communication component of the Nigerian counterterrorism strategy, we never felt bad about this. After all, General Buratai only demonstrated his detribalized nature by engaging other firms for the Armys PR services.

Meanwhile, we are equally not unmindful of the fact that the lack of patronage by the Nigerian Army and few others is likely due to the fact that we had worked closely with a consummate spymaster on the national security architecture during the immediate past administration of President Goodluck Jonathan.

Nevertheless, while we had no pecuniary relationship with the Nigerian Army, General Buratai was gracious enough to have acceded to our interventions on the plight of some journalists and media houses in critical moments, and he even delegated officers to attend our programmes.

Still, with all sense of modesty, if the Nigerian Army were indeed our client, they would not have committed the communication harakiri of initially denying the presence of troops at the Lekki Toll Plaza during the height of the EndSDARS protest of October 20, 2020.

The armys blunder, which is also cited in the book, “101 Fake News on EndSARS,” is among the reasons for the public mistrust of the security services and lingering distrust of the government since that incident.

Meanwhile, the EndSARS panels attempt to redefine the meaning of the words massacre and genocide was faulted by professional opinions of pathologists, forensic experts, ballistic specialists, legal practitioners, among others, as contained in the report itself.

Interestingly, the author of the book on EndSARS, Dahiru M. Lawal, was an early supporter of the EndSARS movement, until the peaceful protests turned violent. The decentralised mass movement against police brutality was unfortunately hijacked by hoodlums, leading to violent attacks, including killings and the destruction of property worth billions of naira.

For instance, the initial video of a policeman allegedly shooting a civilian in Ughelli, Delta State, which triggered the EndSARS rallies, and other similar reports, turned out to be fake.

As chronicled in the book, notable personalities, including the Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, and a former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, had to issue written and record video rejoinders respectively, to deny the fake inciteful statements attributed to them during the crisis.

Similarly, politicians like Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Governor Nyesom Wike of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had to address the press on falsehoods fabricated against them, which could have inflamed situations then.

Some spokespersons to public officials, Femi Adesina and Funke Egbemode, both incidentally former Presidents of the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE), were also victims of the mischief of fake news merchants.

These peddlers of illicit information, apart from impersonating celebrities, also lied against religious bodies by grafting the images of Catholic Bishops on their false narratives, claiming that these distinguished clerics were marching in support of EndSARS, while this was blatantly untrue. In another misleading contrivance, some female Muslims were also said to be protesting in Katsina State, while no such thing happened.

Meanwhile, some of the credible, traditional media platforms that published fake stories and footage from that series of protests have since dropped these unfortunate contents from their sites. One of the national broadcast stations “Arise TV” that quoted the famed witness DJ Switchs claim that snipers were shooting protesters from Access bank building, had to tender an apology after the management of the bank issued a statement saying the people located on their head office tower were staff members carrying out maintenance work on the building, and not Nigerian Army snipers who had been drafted to kill protesters.

While some of the media could not offer unreserved apologies for misleading the public, a diligent web search reveals that a number of pages that had initially carried the fake news have since dropped them which are no longer online.

I strongly believe that media platforms should be harnessed as effective tools in swiftly countering false information, especially if this is defamatory, discriminatory, malicious, uncorroborated or clearly dangerous.

We must find a way of protecting our ethnic and religious diversity in Nigeria, which is a source of strength so that our fault lines are not exploited by undesirable elements bent on setting citizens against each other.

Government must find a way of regaining the needed, but already eroded, confidence of the public/masses of Nigerians, due to the high wave of distrust and cynicism about its officials, statements, and actions.

Also, the Nigerian security services should always display utmost professionalism in the course of discharging their statutory responsibilities, while also eschewing the temptation to be corrupt, high-handed and lawless, especially in their interactions with regular Nigerians.

Yushau A. Shuaib
Author “An Encounter with the Spymaster” and Crisis Communication Strategies
www.YAShuaib.com

The post Nigerian Army, General Buratai and EndSARS Protests appeared first on YAShuaib.

What we have learnt from history, including World Wars, civil wars and communal conflicts are what others are failing to learn from, as newer cycles of history unfold before our eyes. It is, no doubt, easier to tell lies about incidents than to go the inconvenient way of seeking the truth about situations and happenings.

In the last one decade of my life as a humanitarian worker and crisis communicator, working closely with the media, the security and response agencies, I have found out that many crises situations are triggered by reckless statements, irresponsible behaviours and unnecessary confrontations.

I was directly involved in managing the plights of internally displaced persons (IDPs) during the peak of Niger Delta militancy in 2009 (https://cutt.ly/lekkidelta); that of the victims of post-election violence in the North in 2011 (https://cutt.ly/lekkielection); and situations attendant upon the rampant Boko Haram suicide bombings across the Northern states and Abuja between 2011 and 2013 (https://cutt.ly/lekkiboko). I was also a member of a special team assigned to evacuate stranded Nigerians from Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, during the turmoil of the Arab Spring (https://cutt.ly/lekkilibya).

My engagement as a consultant on crisis management by the former National Security Adviser, Colonel Sambo Dasuki (rtd.), also further exposed me to the reality of the conditions of service and sacrifices of personnel of the Nigerian military, paramilitary and intelligence services, who are working tirelessly to keep us safe (https://cutt.ly/lekkisambo). Although my official engagements in those regards terminated with the tenure of President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015, however since emergency management is everyone’s business, I have continued to provide advisory services at NO COST to the same security agencies.

This mutual relationship has afforded me unfettered access to security sector spokespersons, as I volunteer my time in cementing the rapport between these agencies and the media, and by extension civil society groups.

When the protest against police brutality broke out a few weeks back, I ensured that as an independent forum, our news platform monitored and reported on the activities of the EndSARS protesters, as well as those of the ProSARS agitators. I also received regular updates from the spokespersons of the Police, the Department of State Services (DSS), the Customs, and the federal Correctional Service, among others that were in the frontline of response to the protests.

Surprisingly, while the Federal Government approved the disbanding of the Special Anti-Robber Squad (SARS), which was the original instance for the demonstrations, and acceded to other requests of the protesters, the situations rather grew worse.

Self-acclaimed freedom fighters, social media influencers and activists, aggravated the already tense situation, through the uttering of reckless and unsubstantiated statements.

In an audio broadcast, a highly divisive Igbo agitator, Nnamdi Kalu, incited the followers of his group, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), against security operatives, leaders of other ethnic groups and their structures, as located in different host communities. Thereafter, Mujahideen Asari Dokubo, a former Niger Delta militant, responded by threatening Kalu and his followers with dire consequences if they dared to carry out any attack, or even assault on Muslims.

From Abuja, the nation’s capital, to other states, peaceful protests were turning violent. A prompt statement by Igbo leaders, denouncing Kalu’s provocative broadcast, averted what would have been a major ethnic clash in Nigeria’s most populous state of Kano.

Meanwhile, on the evening of Tuesday, October 20, the social media was suddenly driven into a frenzy as news came online that troops of the Nigerian Army were shooting at and massacring scores of innocent protesters.

Almost immediately and citing eyewitness accounts, the media and international community condemned what rapidly gained momentum as #LekkiMassacre. While these parties had genuine reasons to be concerned about the safety of citizens, it was a bit worrying to realise that the same level of attention, outrage and condemnation had not been paid by the global community to the atrocities regularly meted out to security personnel, who are also Nigerians, in the line of their duties. These included beheadings, arsonist attacks, assaults on security infrastructures, the looting of armouries, and also jailbreaks involving fatalities.

When our news platform reported on the subsequent disclosure of Governor Sanwo-olu of Lagos State that there had been no massacre at the Lekki Toll Gate on that Tuesday, except for an isolated case of a person who died from brute force to the head, we were accused of a one-sided report. (https://cutt.ly/lekki)

Rather than have our objective reportage discredited, we asked for contrary evidence that showed true information about the purported deaths from the protesters and eyewitnesses of that evening. All we received as evidence were pieces of mostly unrelated footages to the incident, including doctored images and manipulated videos.

Concerned about the integrity of the media in relation to responsible and credible reporting, I personally reached out to friendly media to insist on concrete evidence from eyewitnesses, so as not deteriorate the security situation in the country at that particularly very tense moment. I spoke to the Editor of Daily Trust, Hamza Idris; the Editor-in-Chief of Premium Times, Musikilu Mojeed, the Publisher of DailyNigerian, Jaafar Jaafar; and the Aljazeera Chief Correspondent in Nigeria, Ahmed Idris. I also contacted respected columnist, Fredrick Nwabufo of The Cable newspaper; a prominent social media influencer, Gimba Kakanda; as well as a civil society activist, Auwalu Musa Rafsanjani of CISLAC. In addition, I engaged spokespersons of the Amnesty International and Emmanuel Onwubiko of HURIWA to help in facilitating the gathering of evidence on the alleged massacre.

In fairness to the media and civil society groups, they all spoke about relying on eyewitness accounts mostly from celebrities and social media influencers, without subjecting the information received to rigorous verification. There was also the admission that there was no authenticated footage of the said ‘massacre’ at Lekki Toll gate so far.

Equally disturbing was the fact that despite the increasingly widespread usage of the term “massacre” – which literally means an “indiscriminate killing of a large number of human beings” – to describe the Lekki incident, no single-family had stepped forward (even till date) to report the loss of a relative during the Lekki shooting.

In the aftermath of this confusion, the largest social media platforms, Facebook and Instagram, have continued to flag several contents containing the alleged images of the Lekki Massacre as false information, after these were subjected to scrutiny by independent fact-checkers.

Similarly, credible fact-checking sites have debunked footages purported to be from the alleged Lekki Massacre. Leading the pack in debunking fake images from the EndSARS protests is the world’s oldest news agency, Agence France-Presse (AFP) which describes ‘bodies recovered from Lekki Toll Shooting in Nigeria as FALSE (https://cutt.ly/lekkiafp). It is followed by Dubawa, Nigeria’s first indigenous independent verification and fact-checking project (https://cutt.ly/lekkidubawa) AllNews.ng (https://cutt.ly/lekkinews), Aledeh (https://cutt.ly/lekkialede) and a very recent fact-checking site on the alleged Lagos Black Tuesday (https://lagosblacktuesday.org/).

Regrettably, many people share stories before they even read them, at a period when the social media landscape is bedevilled by the antics of dangerous and anonymous sources who, for ulterior motives, manipulate contents for the consumption of publics whose gullibility are exploited. The promoters of such deliberate disinformation spread false and misleading contents that confuse, fool and deceive their targets, with the sole aims of reinforcing sentiments, influencing bad judgement, aggravating anger, inducing mob attacks and plunging society into monumental crises and conflict.

While I personally support the objectives of EndSARS and similar protests towards good governance, the media and civil society groups should be wary of fake news on the social media by subjecting eye-witness accounts and other contents to critical verification and authentication before authorising their dissemination. Human society, as we know it to be, might one day depend on that crucial necessity of caution.

Yushau A. Shuaib
Editor-in-Chief, PRNigeria.com
editor@yahoo.com

The post Lekki Massacre: Fake News, Anarchy and the Rest of Us appeared first on YAShuaib.

The administration of President Muhammadu Buhari is struggling to contain the protests of the EndSARS movement that has gripped the country like a wildfire, in a similar way that the previous administration of President Goodluck faced the challenge of tackling the Occupy Nigeria campaign in 2012.

Most campaigns through protest movements in Nigeria have been geared towards entrenching the rule of law, good governance, transparency and accountability, equity and justice. They have generally been mobilisations towards a freer and more livable society.

While in the past more than one week, the #EndSARS protests have been calling for an end to police brutality and oppression through the banning of the Federal-Special Anti-Robbery Squad (F-SARS) of the Nigeria Police Force, the Occupy Nigeria socio-political protest movement of 2012, was in response to fuel subsidy removal, alongside all the corruption endemic to the country’s petroleum industry, by the Federal Government of the day.

Similarly, in 2014, #BringBackOurGirls movement was launched as a pressure group for the release of the kidnapped Chibok School Girls, which subsequently drew a massive global attention. Some of the recognised and respected faces of those earlier movements, who have remained consistent in their advocacies for social causes are Aisha Yesufu, a human rights activist and Omoyele Sowore, a citizen journalist among others.

In other climes, mass protests are characterised by civil disobedience, social resistance, strike actions, demonstrations, and more recently online activism, especially in this age of the social media. For instance, the Arab Spring movement in 2010 was triggered by a Tunisian street vendor who set himself ablaze in protest against the confiscation of his wares, and the harassment and humiliation inflicted on him by government officials.

That act of the self-immolation of the street vendor, known as Mohammed Bouazizi, ignited the series of protests that became catalyst for the widespread revolution that swept across the Arab world. Through a succession of anti-government protests, uprisings, and in some extreme cases, armed rebellion, yet driven by different force fields, the Arab Spring movement consumed the regimes of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, and Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen, while other regimes, such as that in Syria, were shaken to their foundation.

Just lately, the African continent witnessed the removal from office of President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan and Ibrahim Boubacar Keita of Mali after global outrage prompted by protest movements.

The funding of most protest movements is always shrouded in secrecy, just as the logistics arrangements for coup-de tats were in the past. In any case, intelligence services manage to detect, to some extent, where some of the funding for these movements are coming from, if these are channeled through the financial system.

The widespread use of social media platforms, with their relative anonymity, facilitates the effective coordination of large-scale and well-organised fund-raising schemes from multiple online donors, which are raising huge amounts of cash for logistics.

Crowdfunding is the practice of raising money for a project or venture from a large number of people via the Internet. Online fundraising, which has become part of the digital culture, is a form of alternative financing, driven through crowdsourcing, these days. It could be easier to identify the faces of campaigns, such as lawyers, journalists, social media influencers and human rights activists, however it is extremely difficult to identify the major financiers and donors who want to remain anonymous.

While crowdfunding accounts are legitimate and channelled for good causes, some of these are either created for other less than desirable purposes, which could be hijacked for political interests. Meanwhile, the EndSARS protest movement has raised over N37 million through crowdfunding, according to one of the leading groups in the protest, the Feminist Coalition. The figure shows an addition of N31 million in just four days, indicating a leap of about 487.8 per cent from the previous figure on October 10, which stood at N6,354,561.27.

While Flutterwave is one of the major crowdfunding platforms deployed in mobilising financial resources for the campaign, its Chairman and former Deputy Governor of CBN, Mr. Tunde Lemo is reported to have raised an alarm that “bad guys were moving money through them.” Hence, he said that he had directed the suspension of the fintech firm’s payment platform to prevent the illicit flow of funds through their channel to questionable causes.

So far, the Federal Government, and by implication the Nigeria Police, has given in to the demand of the protesters by disbanding the Federal-SARS or F-SARS and ordered all operatives of the now defunct unit to undergo psychological and medical examinations.

The police spokesperson, DCP Frank Mba, who has consistently engaged social media influencers and critical stakeholders on the development, announced the setting up of the Special Weapons and Tactics Team (SWAT), which will replace the disbanded F-SARS.

Frank added that former operatives of the defunct F-SARS would not be recruited into SWAT, as the new outfit will strictly be intelligence-driven and not embark on routine patrols.

Even with this development, many protesters have expressed skepticism at what they consider as the duplicity of the government in seeking to quell their campaign, which they have continued in a way now targeted at the newer hashtag, #EndSWAT and #EndInsecurityNow, in replacement of the earlier #EndSARS.

One of the founders of EndSARS agitation, Segun Awosanya, popularly known as Segalink, has distanced himself from any further protest with regard to ending F-SARS, after alleging that politicians and commercial criminals have hijacked the protest for their selfish ends.

In a series of recent tweets, Segalink has warned that the youths of the country would be endangering their lives if they insist on continuing with the protests after the government has agreed to all their demands.

It may therefore not be a coincidence that the strongly-worded but short statement by the Nigerian Military, warning to deal decisively with subversive elements and troublemakers, has also been issued. The Army spokesperson, Colonel Sagir Musa, who issued the statement, added that the Nigerian Army “remains highly committed to defend(ing) the country and her democracy at all cost.”

Similarly, Major General John Enenche, the Coordinator Defence Media Operations also issued another strong warning on behalf all the security services. He said: “The Armed Forces of Nigeria and other security agencies have observed with dismay some violence-related protests across the country; particularly the increasing number of attacks on peaceful protesters by thugs and miscreants. This unfolding event against peace loving Nigerians will not be condoned. Hence, thugs and miscreants are hereby warned to desist from engaging in violent activities against peaceful Nigerians henceforth, or face appropriate measures.”

Whatever may be the case, it is appropriate to reiterate here and now that citizens have the legitimate right to express their political, social and economic concerns in their country through demonstrations or protests. To this extent, the security agencies should know that violent crackdowns against protesters would always lead to untoward consequences, which would not augur well for the image of the federal government.

In crisis management, dialogue, constructive engagements, negotiations, and compromises are the acceptable and sustainable approaches to peacebuilding. Let’s stay on this lane please.

Yushau A. Shuaib
Author “An Encounter with the Spymaster” and “Crisis Communication Strategies”

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