Fact-Checking the Fiction: Misinformation plagues Nigeria's presidential election

Experts have raised concerns about the rise of misinformation targeting Nigeria's Electoral Commission and Supreme Court judges, whose verdicts will decide the country's presidential election.

This trend is a massive discredit to Africa's most populous country, where election rigging, technical failures, and violence are not uncommon. The recent February 25, 2023, vote has fueled rampant misinformation due to transmission delays and technical glitches.

Nigerians' aversion to fact-checking

According to Kemi Busari, the Nigeria publishing director of the fact-checking organization Dubawa, this is a significant problem in Nigeria. He laments that "people don't care about fact-checks. All they care about are their prejudices."

Post-election rumble

After the presidential election, candidates who trailed the declared winner, Bola Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar, and Peter Obi, challenged the results. Experts predict that these appeals will reach the Supreme Court, as was the case in the previous presidential election in 2019.

Dismantling Falsehoods

The AFP fact-check service has dismantled dozens of false information circulating around the election, including a photo that allegedly showed President-elect Tinubu bribing the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Olukayode Ariwoola.

However, the image from 1996 shows Tinubu in London with then-opponent Dele Momodu, who has refuted the allegations on social media.

Social Networks and the Spread of Rumours

Social networks like Facebook, WhatsApp, and TikTok, with some 36 million users in Nigeria, have facilitated the spread of rumours and false information.

Some actions of the executive power in recent years had already undermined citizens' confidence in justice, such as the police search of the homes of two Supreme Court judges in October 2016, who were eventually cleared of all suspicion.

Chimamanda Adichie's Perspective

Best-selling novelist Chimamanda Adichie summarised the disappointment felt by many Nigerians when she wrote in an editorial for The Atlantic that "the bitter disillusion felt by many Nigerians is due not so much to the fact that their candidate did not win but that the election they had dared to trust turned out to be flawed in such an unacceptable and inexcusable manner."

The INEC's Response

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has been targeted by "a series of desperate smear campaigns by troublemakers," according to its spokesman, Rotimi Oyekanmi.

To limit the spread of false stories, Afolabi Adekaiyaoja, an expert at the Center for Democracy and Development, suggests that justice and INEC should initiate more dynamic communication. He argues that access to information plays a role in reducing citizens' concerns about these electoral and judicial processes.