The National Democratic Front (NDF) says the #EndSARS protesters and opposition politicians are using fake news to discredit the Nigerian military. 

The NDF raised this alarm in a press statement signed by its Secretary-General Bolaji Abdulkadir on Friday. 

According to the group, the protesters are to be blamed for the growing spate of violence and attacks on law enforcement agents across the country having incited Nigerians with fake news. 

In a bid to push their agenda, it said the Nigerian Army have been accused of atrocities it did not commit while its personnel are called out in public over incidents they know nothing about. 

Worse still, the NDF said the international community are made to believe these falsehoods, especially as it is being sold to them by some supposed celebrities-turned activists. 

The National Democratic Front, however, appealed to Nigerians to be more vigilant than ever and begin to subject multimedia on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Whatsapp to basic fact-checking while also interrogating whatever vested interests on mainstream media. 

It also urged the Army to expand the cyber component of its Exercise Crocodile Smile VI to counter fake news, including identifying offending sites for clean-up.

Read full statement below:

The National Democratic Front (NDF) is compelled to raise the alarm over the industrial scale weaponization and deployment of fake news by #EndSARS protesters and the opposition against the Nigerian Military. 

It is most tragic that at a time when citizens of the country should have been coordinated to pursue the dire reform being championed by true patriots, unsuspecting Nigerians are being conscripted into undermining their country in response because they are being manipulated by the #EndSARS protesters. The incitement of the citizens through fake news is responsible for their growing confrontation with law enforcement and the consequent orgy of arson that is being witnessed in several cities of the country. 

In the days since the #EndSARS protests begun, organizations, individual and even families have not been spared with the Nigerian Army being accused of atrocities it did not commit while its personnel are being called out in public over incidents, they know nothing about. In the vilest form of fake news even, there have been instances where the family photographs of unrelated persons are being shared and tagged as those of military personnel that have engaged in human rights abuses. 

We have similarly recorded instances in which videos or photographic records of incidents dating back several months or even years are being shared as if they occurred in the last couple of days during the #EndSARS protests just as events that occurred in other African countries are presented as taking place in Nigeria.  Accident victims are presented as a casualty of military intervention in the protests while celebrities who were having private moments in their private spaces were reported dead by protest leaders simply to provoke Nigerians into supporting their protests. 

Even more worrisome is how the #EndSARS protesters have mainstreamed fake news by feeding international outlets like CNN with lies and then sending their members as talking heads to appear on news shows on such broadcasts outlets to bestow an appearance of facts on the lies they are telling. Some celebrity activists have been recruited for this purpose and they go the extra of leveraging social media like Twitter and Instagram to further promote their lies.  

The National Democratic Front, therefore, appeals to Nigerians to be more intellectually vigilant than they have ever been since the campaign of fake news directed at the country will not relent but will rather intensify as the protesters run out of ideas in their bid to cause the worst outrage yet. Nigerians must begin to subject multimedia shared to them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Whatsapp to basic fact-checking while also learning to interrogate whatever vested interests a mainstream media and even indigenous media outlet may have because the age of media objectivity is gone. 

We urge the Nigerian Army to expand the cyber component of its Exercise Crocodile Smile VI to counter fake news, including identifying offending sites for clean-up. It should create a fact-checking site that Nigerians run to when they have to verify that the contents they are being fed are genuine. 

Our charge to the protesters and the opposition is not to worsen their entanglement by resorting to fake news since they would easily be exposed as scams and fraud when Nigerians realize they have been taken for a ride by the initial information that the protesters, opposition and activists shared initially.  They must therefore stop the use of fake news for attention-grabbing.

The Council of Patriotic Yoruba Youth (CPYY) has blamed Nnamdi Kanu and his proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) for the attack on innocent #EndSARS protesters and the arson that followed in Lagos State. 

In a statement signed by its President, 
Fagbemi Olanrewaju, on Friday, the CPYY said Kanu had declared war on the Yoruba nation and effectively carried out his threat.   

Recall that peaceful #EndSARS protesters were shot by unknown gunmen at Lekki tollgate on Tuesday while the Oba of Lagos palace, TVC headquarters, The Nation Newspaper and others were attacked by hoodlums the following day. 

And according to CPYY, this was a well-thought-out plot by Kanu to destroy the economic advantage of the Yoruba nation and make them subservient to the Igbo’s whose property and businesses were left intact. 

The group said targetting Yoruba businesses “marks a despicable low even for a scoundrel like Nnamdi Kanu, whose trademark as a coward that abandoned his so-called struggle and fled abroad to instigate attacks from his bolthole”. 

It added that it is “most irresponsible to hijack the #EndSARS protests, which objectives are noble, and deploy the same as a vehicle for pursuing a failed separatist agenda”. 

The group, however, assured that the Yoruba nation will continue to “live by and display the high sense of civility for which our respected culture is known and will never descent to IPOB’s miserable depth”.

It urged the Federal Government to investigate the targeted arsons and shooting of #EndSARS protesters at Lekki tollgate. 

Read full statement below:

The Council of Patriotic Yoruba Youth has had the opportunity to conduct an initial assessment in the aftermath of Tuesday, October 20, 2020 event at Lekki Toll Gate in Lagos in which pandemonium broke out as #EndSARS protesters that had camped out there in defiance of a curfew announced by the state government were fired upon by hoodlums suspected to have been rented by IPOB. 

On the following day, there was widespread arson across the state with the destruction of the Nigeria Ports Authority building, Oriental Hotel, Television Continental (TVC) studios, the Nation newspapers head office, the Palace of the Oba of Lagos, the family homes of Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwoolu, BRT depot in Oyingbo with scores of buses, other BRT locations and buses, looting of ShopRite outlets, burning of the police station and vehicles,  burning of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) vehicles, and destruction of several other homes.

Because the nearby CCTVs were earlier disabled and power supply (illumination) cut off before the Tuesday attack, the jury is still out as to the specific details of the gunmen that opened fire on the protesters. There has been outrage that the troops around the location fired the shots, but the videos shared by the protesters themselves showed that the soldiers were firing at inclined angles, which effectively meant they were shooting into the air. There was also the issue of the massive deployment of fake news to inflame passion over the incidents, particularly false news items that announced that several celebrities were killed, unrelated photos of accident victims and even promotional movie stills (like an actor carrying a body draped in Nigerian flag) were used as proof of casualty from the attack. Actress, Eniola Badmus, for instance, had to come forward to debunk trending news reports that she was killed at Lekki Toll Gate. Suffice to say, the ground has been set for what was to unfold on Wednesday.

The leader of the proscribed terrorist organization, Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, on online interactive radio, actively coordinated the attacks by miscreants on Wednesday. He gave the names, identity and locations of people to be attacked. Those leading the attacks provided updates to Kanu who urged them on to carry out more attacks. Go and look for weapons and arm yourselves …build weapons, if you don’t have any gun construct one, even ordinary catapult build one, go and use it and destroy them… Anywhere you see Sanwoolu you attack him,  Tinubu, his hotel must be burned down…”

True to Kanu’s directive, the Igbo mob went to town and destroyed property they believed to belong to Tinubu and Sanwo-Olu, including the magnificent Oriental Hotel, which ownership has never been proven to be Tinubu’s. Other Yoruba owned assets were thoroughly vandalized, including the Palace of the Oba of Lagos. What played out was the fulfilment of IPOB’s long-standing threat to deal with the Yoruba because of their political tolerance of northern Nigeria.

These wanton arsons, on the surface, appear to be targeted at individuals, like the Oba of Lagos, whom the Igbos have promised to deal with because of his election period comments in 2015 that betrayals will suffer consequences from the deities. But in reality, the target is the entire Yoruba nation. The objective is to destroy the economic advantage of the Yoruba nation and make them subservient to the Igbo’s whose property and businesses were left intact – if the mob were truly not a posse of IPOB militants it would have destroyed everything in its path and not spare the assets of Igbo people. What transpired on Tuesday was a pure manifestation of Nnamdi Kanu and his IPOB targeted Yoruba businesses and personalities using #ENDSARS protests after his directive for Igbos to attack the Yoruba and the fact on the ground, including the feedback provided to Kanu by leaders of the arsonists, confirmed the targeting of respected Yoruba people and key businesses.

There is further evidence that points out that the burning of police stations by some so-called hoodlums was to provoke security agencies to pick up arms against the citizens and this was masterminded by the IPOB cells in Lagos. 

The Council of Patriotic Yoruba Youth condemns this provocation in the strongest terms possible. The targeting of Yoruba businesses marks a despicable low even for a scoundrel like Nnamdi Kanu, whose trademark as a coward that abandoned his so-called struggle and fled abroad to instigate attacks from his bolthole. We find the conduct of the arsonists abhorrent, particularly when they stole the identity of soldiers to kill innocent and genuine protesters just so they could provoke the situation whereby they made their arson appeal like a justified reprisal. It is most irresponsible to hijack the #EndSARS protests, which objectives are noble, and deploy the same as a vehicle for pursuing a failed separatist agenda.

The Yoruba nation will persistently live by and display the high sense of civility for which our respected culture is known and will never descent to the miserable depth to which IPOB and its sympathizers have sunken. We will continue to hold onto the belief that the Igbo nation is not defined by the addiction to violence that is prevalent among the terrorist elements from that ethnic group.  We will however reply their provocations with the robust institutional frameworks that exist to deal with such errant behaviour. 

Consequently, all true Yoruba sons and daughters should resist the temptation to be drawn into a tit-for-tat circle of violence that the IPOB cells want to plunge the entire country into the chaos they hope will help achieve their separatist agenda.

We call on the Federal Government to especially investigate the targeted arsons, which are not part of #EndSARS protests that had responsible Nigerians across all ethnic affiliations taking part. The investigation should extend to how Tuesday’s incident at Lekki Toll Gate was manipulated by IPOB terrorists to produce the outrage that left people indifferent while they unleashed the state-wide attacks the following Wednesday. 

The Council of Patriotic Yoruba Youth demands that the Federal Government immediately approach the United Kingdom’s authorities with the recording of the radio broadcast that Kanu used for coordinating the Tuesday’s terrorist attacks to take into custody to come to answer for his actions. The same evidence should be provided to Interpol to bring Kanu in because his crime is international in these regards.

On the desecration of the Oba of Lagos’ Palace, we call on the state government to deploy the strongest scorch-earth policy against perpetrators until they return the stolen artefacts and perform the necessary cleansing rites. The state’s traditional council must also outlaw the use of any traditional title (eze, obi etc) by Igbos in the state going forward because of the disdain their people have shown for our traditional institution, which they have always been keen to subjugate. 

Finally, we urge those affected by the arsons to stay strong in the confidence that as Yoruba they will always be reborn anew as the phoenix; out of the ashes of IPOB’s destruction more stately edifices shall arise.

A University Don, Professor Solomon Bewaji , has described the violence that followed the EndSARS protest, as an indication that criminals have declared war on Nigeria. 

Prof. Bewaji who is of the Department of History, University of Ilorin lamented that criminals have taken over the protests and have declared war on ordinary citizens of the country.

He said this is unfortunate as it has complicated matters and made life more difficult for teeming Nigerians on whose behalf the protesters claimed they’re fighting for.

Speaking with press men at his office in Unilorin, the Don said, the protesters have shown no empathy to the masses who are nearing the brunt of their actions.

Prof. Bewaji said what is going on is not a revolution but an equivalent of an attempted coup by criminals who are not happy with the reforms going on in the country hence are doing everything to upturn them.

He said while revolutions are spontaneous and borne out of genuine grievances, what is going on in Nigeria seemed to have been planned, coordinated and well funded to embarrass the government. 

He said from all indications that a well written script to cause the destabilisation of the country is in play.

“Otherwise, how do you explain a situation where on the very first day that the protesters came out, they were carrying food in take away packs and distributing assorted drinks not just to themselves but to security agents on patrol,” he said.

Prof. Bewaji said the food, snacks and music from hired DJs and musicians shows that there was a budget for the protest which was far beyond what the youths could have afforded on their own.

The University Don said for the protesters to have sustained the protests long after the President had disbanded the SARS police unit,  was deliberate in order to embarrass the government and allow criminals to hijack the process.

He said if the protesters were genuine, they would have called off the protest the moment their demands were met.

“Ordinarily, they would have discontinued the protests the moment the President disbanded the SARS and the Vice President apologised, but because they want to create a window for criminals to take over, they refused to leave the streets.

“Now the criminals have taken over and they’ve started burning public buildings, attacking innocent people and have ushered in an atmosphere of mayhem and commotion all against the masses of this country,” he stated.

Our correspondent noted that the Edo State Government on Monday, imposed a 24 hour curfew on all parts of the state following a breakdown of law and order leading to the burning of public buildings and the release of prisoners by some protesters.

While the Lagos State Government also followed suit on Tuesday by declaring a 24-hour curfew on the state following similar outbreak of violence and breakdown of law and order in the state while there were cases of violence in states like Plateau, Osun, Ondo and the Federal Capital Territory. 

Prof. Bewaji said the current protest is a clear departure from what obtained in the past where the demands of protesters are well articulated by identified leaders of the youths.

“But in this case, no one can tell you their leaders, they’re nowhere to be found even whe  the government has indicated interest in negotiating with them.

“If their demands are noble then they should come out and table it before our elected leaders so that yhe matter could be resolved for good, but  they’re they hiding,” he stated .

He said the masses have been put in untold hardships due to the ongoing protests as people could no longer go to work and have been forced to close their business premises while movements have been restricted even in states where there are no curfew.

The Don appealed to the youths to do the needful and pull out of the streets so as to enable the government implement their demands.

“That to me remains the most sensible thing to do because further protests would only escalate the already tense situation for the masses of this country,” he stated.

He insisted that violent protest is not the way to go on the light of the current hardship ending faced by majority of Nigerians.