Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has denied reports circulating in the social media that N3.4 billion was budgeted for the recently-launched national reorientation campaign “Change Begins With Me”.
Mohammed was speaking in Asaba, the Delta State capital on Friday at the opening of the 14th National Council on Information.
Describing the report as a ruse, he said it was reports like this that lends credence to the calls for some sort of regulation for the usage of the social media.
“Anyone can wake up and decide to become an online newspaper publisher, an online television station owner, an online radio station operator, a purveyor of news, photographs and videos,” the minister lamented.
“They use the numerous social media platforms like Facebook, Whatsapp, Skype, Twitter and Instagram just to mention a few.
“They spread whatever information that catches their fancy without engaging in the rigours of accuracy, fact-checking and fairness imposed by the traditional media.
“But there is another problem: They have their own public, and this public believes whatever information they put out.”
Mohammed further expressed disappointment that some journalists and seasoned writers go ahead and spread such falsehoods without bothering to crosscheck the facts.
He also refuted reports that some ministers have been sacked by president Muhammadu Buhari.
He said: “Ministers are daily being dropped on the social media. Many of us now wake up to read that we will be dropped as ministers or have our portfolios changed.
“Even our families and friends believe what they read or hear in the social media than what we tell them.”
Mohammed urged government media managers to always train their personnel on new technology and acquire state-of-the art technology as well as deploying uncommon commitment and passion to what they do.
He added that ministers or commissioners of information, government information managers are the true agents of change, urging them to sustain the “Change Begins With Me” campaign, which he said was aimed at “bringing back those time-tested values that once defined us as a people.”
The 46th meeting of the National Council on Information has the theme “Leveraging on Information and Digital Technology to Sustain the Change Agenda of Government”.
It is being attended by commissioners of information from the 36 states and the FCT and critical stakeholders in the government information circle, including heads of federal and state governments media organisations.