By Martin Paul, Abuja

The Federal Government has attributed public distrust as a major challenge facing policing in Nigeria.

The disclosure yesterday by the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, coincided with government’s rejection of a report by the US international TV  station, the Cable News Network (CNN) on the alleged Lekki Toll Gate, Lagos massacre of protesters during the recent #EndSARS crisis.

Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, spoke in a Abuja while delivering a speech at the Public Policy Dialogue on “Policing and Human Rights in Nigeria”.

 “Now a major problem is lack of confidence between the police and members of the public.

“That’s why the present administration was able to come up with community policing that all of us are trying to see how it will work.

 “Police of today we know where we are coming from, if you go back to the roots, you find out from the colonial era what police used to be when you don’t want your child to do anything, you tell them I will call the police for you, there’s a lot of distrust and disconnect between the police and the public.

“So the community policing as it is we’re trying to bring into focus, to bridge that gap, it’s going to be community-driven and problem-solving”, the IGP said through his representative, Olushola Oyebande, a Deputy Inspector General of Police(DIG)

The IGP re-emphasised the relevance of state policing and how it will help bridge the gap of communication between the police and the community.

 “We want to involve the community, the locals, to be part of policing of the area.

“They know the culture, the language, topography and that’s why we’re having the community policing initiative to train the locals to join us. So, that we don’t prevent proactive policing, rather than being reactive.

Also in Abuja, the Federal Government came up strongly against the Cable News Network (CNN) saying the news station should be sanctioned.

It also stated that there was no massacre of demonstrators during the #EndSARS protest in Lekki, Lagos  and labelled the Lekki incident as “social media massacre” or a “hoax massacre”.

Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, who addressed a press conference in Abuja yesterday, said that the international news organisation goofed in the said report.

He said it was a case of massacre without bodies, and asked International Community not to be misled by social media posts to impose sanctions on Nigeria, describing the CNN report as “irresponsible journalism.”

Mohammed said the federal Government would not hesitate to regulate the social media  and said  the Buhari administration was  satisfied with the conduct of the military and other security agencies during the #EndSARS protests.

 “While we await the Judicial Panel in Lagos to unravel what transpired at the Lekki Toll Gate, what we can say, based on testimonies available in the public space, is that the world may have just witnessed, for the very first time ever, a Massacre Without Bodies! Some have tagged it ‘social media massacre’.

“The testimony of Brig.-Gen, Ahmed Ibrahim Taiwo of the Nigerian Army before the Panel was compelling and I am sure many of you have listened to or watched it.

”The highlights, for those who may not have watched the testimony are soldiers were deployed all over Lagos, including Lekki Toll Gate, after the other security agencies were overwhelmed on Oct. 20th 2020, upon the request of the state government.

“Before deployment, the soldiers were briefed on the Rules of Engagement, which they adhered to all through. Soldiers at Lekki Toll Gate fired blank ammunitions into the air and blank ammunition cannot do any damage to the flesh, not to talk of killing anyone

“Firing live ammunition into the crowd, as some have alleged, would have led to mass killing, which never happened”.

The minister asked countries that had made hasty judgment on #EndSARS protest to seek the truth, stressing however, that it was regrettable that some people and the international community had been calling for sanctions against Nigeria.

 “Sadly, the purveyors of fake news and disinformation succeeded in deceiving the world that indeed, there was mass killing in Lekki, even when, till date, not a single body has been produced and not a single family or relative has come out to say their child or ward was killed at Lekki.

“More surprising and irresponsible is the fact that some people have been calling for sanctions against Nigeria or against Nigerian government officials on the basis of a hoax. This is one of the dangers of fake news and disinformation.

” Once fake news is out, many run with it, without looking back, even when the truth is eventually revealed. We, therefore, want to use this opportunity to ask those who have alleged massacre at the Lekki Toll Gate to go to the Judicial Panel to present their evidence(s) to the world or simply admit that they have goofed.”

 “This development has reinforced the campaign against fake news and disinformation, which we launched in 2018. As a matter of fact, as far back as 2017, when we dedicated that year’s National Council on Information to the issue of fake news and disinformation, we had been expressing concerns on the dangers posed by irresponsible use of the new media platform. “The concerns culminated in the

“The fake news/disinformation purveyors have latched on to our concerns to allege that the Federal Government is planning to shut down social media. No, we have no plans to shut down the social media.

” What we have always advocated, and what we will do, is to regulate the social media. Nigeria is not alone in this regard. The issue of social media regulation is an ongoing debate not just in Nigeria, but around the world, including in the United States, which is the flag-flyer of constitutional democracy. Even the owners of the various social media platforms, including Facebook, are increasingly joining the call for content regulation.

“Some respected opinion leaders have been playing to the gallery on the issue of social media regulation by making inciting and incendiary statements, while some other individuals and groups have been threatening fire and brimstone over the issue of social media regulation.

“What they have failed to understand is that the only reason we are even able to have this debate is because we have a country.

” If we allow the abuse of social media to precipitate uncontrolled internecine violence, the kind of which was narrowly averted during the EndSARS crisis, no one will remember or be able to use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc, for whatever purpose”, Mohammed said.

Channels, AIT, Arise TV Pay N3m Fines

Meanwhile, the Federal Government has confirmed that the sanctions imposed on some broadcast media stations in the aftermath of the #EndSARS protests were justified and that the affected stations have already paid their fines.

Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, stated this yesterday in Abuja at a media briefing on the #EndSARS protest and its aftermaths.

The minister said that two of the  stations paid their fines in full, while the third paid a part of the fine, with an appeal for time to pay the balance.

Mohammed stressed that the fines imposed on the stations by the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) were not only justified, but that the NBC was indeed lenient.

“In the aftermath of the EndSARS crisis, the NBC fined three broadcast stations for using unverified and dangerous information from the social media.

“Commentators, many of whom didn’t even know why the NBC imposed the fine, rushed to allege an attempt to stifle free speech.

“Unknown to them, the stations themselves knew that they breached the Broadcast Code.

“It is sad to see the traditional media jettisoning the age-long gate-keeping process and instead rushing to rely on the free-wheeling social media, devoid of any gatekeeping, for news,’’ he said.

The minister also said it was imperative for the traditional media to authenticate information from the social media or from any source, for that matter, before publishing or broadcasting same.

He condemned the emerging trend in which traditional media freely used materials from social media sources without taking the pains to verify their authenticity.

“This is a dangerous trend that must be curbed, in the interest of media practitioners themselves, the profession and indeed the country,’’ he said.

Mohammed said if the NBC had wielded the big stick during the protest, some broadcast media organisations would have faced more severe sanctions than mere fines.

“Recall that an otherwise reputable broadcast media organisation had carried a fake report that the Ecumenical Centre in Abuja was on fire during the violence that followed the protest.

“Though the organisation in question later retracted the story, the kind of reprisal attack this could have sparked is better imagined.

“Also, another reputable broadcast media organisation featured a report that identified a maintenance worker atop a bank building overlooking the Lekki tollgate in Lagos as a sniper, leading to attacks that destroyed many of the bank’s branches.

“The organisations have not even been sanctioned for these terrible disinformation, yet rabble-rousers have latched on to the fines to make all sorts of baseless allegations,” he said

The NBC fined Channels Television, AIT and Arise TV N3 million each on Oct. 26 over what it decribed as the unprofessional coverage of the #EndSARS protest and the crises that followed it.

Acting Director-General of NBC, Prof Armstrong Idachaba, announced the sanctions at a news conference in Abuja.