Fake news: news articles that are deliberately and verifiably fallacious, conceived in detail to manipulate the perception of a people. It is used to stir up and inflame social conflict. Counterfeit Stories are mostly sounding beautiful and fantastic will definitely mislead the readers and grow mistrust amongst people. Consequently, result to lack of social grace, ill-manneredness, and discourtesy. This has become a norm in our society where some mischief makers sit at the comfort of their crib, fabricate stories, and make it looks cryptic in order to turn neighbour against neighbour, people antagonistic towards the government.
Why would anyone do this? To intensify social conflict to erode people’s faith in the democratic ruling all in the name of ethnic and religion disparities or prevent people’s ability to work together or side-track people from crucial issue so that these issues remain vague.
People with this spiteful goal can use fake news to cause civil unrest. Fake news poses a serious threat to our nation democracy. Fake news is more widespread on social media than the legitimate fourth estate; thereby endangering large portion of the public because of the way fake news spread geometrically in the informal sector.
Social media having become an avenue which people readily have access to what is going on in the country poses the track to those who simply believe all they have been reading without any form of cross referencing. Regardless of who first propagate it, counterfeit news purposefully sabotages trust in subsequent news we read and as well as in government needless to say, the tribal conflict it causes amongst the masses where an Igbo man cannot go to the North in the hope of doing business in peace or an Hausa man cannot go the west with the aim of practicing cattle rearing to bolster his finances, put a shame to the Nigeria motto of unity and faith peace and harmony.
Misinformation risks worsening ethno-religious tension which in turn heightened concerns about internal security and weakens inter tribal relations.
In a country with more than 250 ethnic groups, even with knowledgeable elites, we still have not gotten it right; we are beleaguered with hatred because of our selfish aspirations. False information and hate speech spread on social media are stoking violence against ethnic groups especially in the middle belt.
Nigeria is high on the list as one of the most unstable states in Africa because of religious and regional divisions; these religious and ethnic have led to conflicts about control of power, unequal allocation of resources, economic decline and ethno-religious clashes.
A high level of corruption via the looting of state resources is another serious and pandemic problem that makes all forms of conflict and troubles worse in Nigeria. The country is richly endowed with natural resources and high amount of human capital but corruption is one of the main reasons that has permeated the entrenchment of lack of development is corruption leading to increased cases of poverty which in turn seeds bitter anger and hatred amongst the people. Poverty and injustice caused by corruption weaken any sense of mutual tolerance, discourages coexistence, while reawakening social hatred, radicalism, violence and protest. For this reason, corruption is the most important issue that has to be resolved in order to diminish ethno-religious conflicts in Nigeria.
National unity makes a country strong and prosperous. It aids in developing policies which in turn drives economic and industrial development especially when the people work together to promote patriotism and guarantee safety of lives and properties.
Finally, Writers, journalists and social media influencers should listen to ‘’small voices’’ and not only listen to narratives being driven against the government and should practice ethics standard in order to reduce any form of fake or misinformed news that will undermine the government and distract people from working together.

By
Solagberu Mustapha Olatunji.

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