The phenomenon of fake news has for so long been with us, that it would be surprising to find anyone claiming ignorance of the festering plague.
Fake news, implies dishing out patently false information about someone, often times a renowned politician or a prominent personality, with a view to damaging the reputation of such a one.
Our own Prof Wole Soyinka, Nobel Laureate and the Pride of Africa, described the heinous practice as one capable of triggering a third World War, and even went on to predict that the satanic author of such cataclysmic and portentous fake news may be a Nigerian.
Fake news has unfortunately become the instrumentalized weapon for lousy and wicked politicians, bereft of the logical and credible wit for countering their soaring and high flying political rivals, especially when they might have vainly exhausted their entrapping snares and puerile propaganda stunts. That brings us to my motivating experience in doing this write-up.
My initial reaction to the good news that my Political Leader, the Rt.Hon Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi will be turbaned by no other than the Emir of DAURA with the rare title of THE DAN AMANAR DAURA, meaning THE TRUSTED SON OF DAURA, was to jump up in joyous ecstasy with the shout of ODIEGWU, literarily meaning Wonderful! or Marvelous!.
The feeling was simply one of overwhelming joy. For when you realize that the Nigerian President hails from Daura and His Royal Majesty, Alhaji Umar Farouk Umar is the powerful Royal father of our own President, the temptation is irresistible to liken the gesture to the following biblical scenario in Matthew 3:17:
“……………….and behold the heavens were opened to Him., and He saw the Spirit descending like a Dove and alighting upon Him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven saying, “THIS IS MY BELOVED SON IN WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED”
This was alas my mood and state of mind when I opened my Whatsapp, obviously craving for more thrilling and ennobling encomiums, on our unstoppably rising political leader. What did I now see? A forwarded message in my Whatsapp environment, paradoxically captioned the “Regret” of Amaechi. I almost wished I had the courage and lethal bomb for blowing up the kill-joy authors of the nauseating write-up I had before me. I was indeed face to face with fake news, for the authors and perpetrators had put unprintable motives into the mouth of our own CRA. Nevertheless, the drama also afforded me the opportunity of realizing that the most efficacious arm against the brewers and composers of fake news, is your first-hand knowledge of the character and general persona of their targeted victim.
For instance, CRA as we fondly call him is so apathetic to corruption and its associated slangs, that you cannot hear him use such expressions as “juicy ministries”. And the authors of the fake news were alleging that the Hon Minister was very infuriated that he was alloted a “non-juicy” Ministry. The “juiciness” of a Ministry in corruption parlance is a metaphorical reference to “pocketable” and divertable Millions to denunciable money laundering havens. Please count Amaechi out of the mere usage of such demeaning and unrefined sleazy vocabularies in official thievery circles. By the time I had gone through the text, I knew that I had before me a classical case of maliciously couched fake news from “ignorant and demented Cowards who are challenged by Amaechi’s feats”, to quote my respected and indefatigable brother and friend, Chief Eze Chukwuemeka Eze. Some lazy and uncreative minds might have initially referred to the Ministry of Transportation as “moribund” but we can today see what creativity, hard work and patriotism have transformed that Ministry into.
The Chinese themselves are appalled at the rhythm of work imposed by the Minister’s on-the-spot supervisory schedules. And so for the first time in the history of our country, we have seen a Minister of Transportation criss-crossing the country severally, to monitor the progress of work in distant Kano, Kaduna, Ibadan, Port Harcourt, Enugu and even outside our borders in Nigerien Mahdi etc. Today the Ferroviaire Revolution is there for all to see. The same Revolution is realizable in all sectors of the economy represented by the various Ministries, being the locomotives of the developmental innovativeness of the various sectors.
The Minister has also declared publicly that he has nothing to do with the actual disbursement of monies procured as loans for the projects, as they are promptly channelled to the appropriate Ministry, once they have been ratified. Until today, no notable top notch of the Ministry of Finance has contradicted that open assertion. The man Amaechi is so transparently honest,
that we must thank God for his life, and the brand he has created by his corroborative public utterances, for which men of goodwill are testifying witnesses.
The purveyors of Fake news are yet to see more of his giant strides, and are therefore expected to be at their busiest worse in this nefarious and demonic pastime.
But, why not stop the unnecessary distraction?
The Good Lord is the Hon Minister’s strength.
