2023 budget: FG to use N81.6m to fight fake news, others

As part of its advocacy against fake news, hate speech, and banditry, the Federal Government has earmarked the sum of N81,677,335 to stamp out the menaces.

Buhari presents 2023 budget: This is contained in the 2023 Appropriation Bill published on the website of the Budget Office of Nigeria.

Pulse reports that President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday, October 7, 2022, presented the 20.51 trillion Naira 2023 Appropriation Bill before a joint session of the National Assembly.

The president stated during the presentation that the government would spend N854.8 billion on Pensions, Gratuities and Retirees’ Benefits, while Personnel Costs would gulp a total of N4.99 trillion.

The government also earmarked 42 trillion Naira as spending by Government-Owned Enterprises, N8.27 trillion as Non-debt Recurrent Costs, and Statutory Transfers of N744.11 billion, among other lines of spending.

Govt to fight fake news: Meanwhile, The Punch did a deep dive into the bill and found out that N22,567,865 has been set aside for “special enlightenment campaign on government’s programmes and policies, testimonial series to gauge impact of government policies on the citizenry.

“Advocacy against fake news, hate speech, farmers-herders clashes, banditry, rape, e.t.c.”

The budget further stated that the sum of N18,654,780 would be used for “quarterly interaction with foreign media, PR lobby”.

Further analysis by the paper 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.”

Fake news poses a threat: This move by the Federal Government came as no surprise as the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, had, repeatedly said that the country had constantly been at war against purveyors of fake news and hate speech.

In an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) last year, the Minister declared that the country was witnessing a metamorphosis from fake news to "deep" fake news, which he claimed, was being used to wage war against the government and its officials.

Mohammed also stated that, although the purveyors of deep fake news were largely unknown online publications at the initial stages, unfortunately, otherwise reputable publications and some mainstream media later joined the bandwagon.