As part of its advocacy against fake news, hate speech, and banditry in 2023, the Nigerian government has budgeted the sum of N81,677,335.
This was disclosed by the federal government via the 2023 appropriation bill published on the the website of the Nigeria’s budget office.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, had, over time insisted that the country had constantly been at war against perpetrators of fake news and hate speech.
Mohammed has said last year in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria that Nigeria had graduated from ordinary fake news to “deep” fake news, which according to him, was being used to wage war against the government and its officials.
According to him, at the beginning, purveyors of deep fake news were largely unknown online publications, adding that it was, however, unfortunate that otherwise reputable publications and some mainstream media had joined the bandwagon while adding that citizens found guilty would be sanctioned.
At least N22,567,865 would be used for “special enlightenment campaign on government’s programmes and policies, testimonial series to gauge impact of government policies on the citizenry, the budget indicated.
“Advocacy against fake news, hate speech, farmers-herders clashes, banditry, rape, e.t.c.”
Further stated that the sum of N18,654,780 would be used for “quarterly interaction with foreign media, PR lobby”. Further analysis also revealed that a total of N24,000,000 would be used for the production of year 2024 Federal Government wall calendar. It was also revealed that the total of N16,454,690 would be spent for “institutional interactions with stakeholders such as bloggers, online publications, Nigeria Union of Journalists among others.”
Truthlive.net had reported earlier that President, Muhammadu Buhari presented the 2023 appropriation bill before the National Assembly in Abuja earlier today.