₦airaland Forum

rippa:
The just concluded CHATHAM house session for the Labour party and NNPP presidential candidates have exposed the very big difference between Obi and Kwankwaso. During the questions and answers section the following happened

Question to Obi
Why haven't you condemn the activities of the IPOB and how do u plan to handle their agitation ?
OBI: I have condemn their activities and when we win, we will call all agitators and listen to why they are agitating. Even in my house, my children agitates and all regions are currently agitating. We will call all of them and listen to their problems

Question to Kwakwaso
Why didn't you merge with LP?
Kwakwaso: I know u are from a particular region (SE on his mind)

Obi answered his question with smile without calling any region or religion even when it was clear that the person that asked the question was from SW, but kwakwaso just couldn't control his emotion. Kwakwaso is not really that smart as we thought.

I used to have respect for him but after the poor showing at CHATHAM, i have to reconsider. Atiku will never say that.

Vote wisely

9jii:
Ipob why are denying your Identity?

drlateef:
And you expect yoruba muslims to vote any Christian in future?

Mrmb:
Peter obi murdered 13 youth in anambra, till today nothing was heard of the case again. $20million dollars cash was found at his NEXT company in Lagos, let him cone and clarify what the money was for, he allocated lands and funds for his beer company.... The Pandora paper indicted him in money laundering scam let him come out and defend against all these allegations na

PlayMaker14:

Ttalk:
Hmmmm

Mrmb:
Why not show the Ariel view and other angle shots, only one sided shot. That tells a lot, na another naming ceremony be this at most, birthday party......

Tinubu Does Not Deserve The Treatment He Is Getting From Buhari And Osinbajo – Shettima

The Arewa Youths Consultative Forum, (AYCF) has alleged that the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo has some grievances against the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Speaking in a chat with Daily Post, the national president of the group, Alhaji Yerima Shettima argued that Tinubu does not deserve the kind of treatment he gets from Osinbajo.

He insisted that if Osinbajo is truly in support of Tinubu he ought to openly show his support for him.

Shettima stated that Tinubu has paid his dues to President Muhammadu Buhari and Osinbajo and deserves better support from them.

The group also alleged that there is a crack within the APC. According to him: “It’s very unfortunate that in recent times things have not been going well, however, Tinubu does not deserve what he’s getting from Osinbajo and Buhari; no matter how bad it is, he has paid his dues and has stood by them. He deserves better than the support they are giving to him.

“If they are truly with him, they should demonstrate it, and if they are not, then they should openly come out and say so. When Obasanjo was in power, in 2006, we could see his body language on how he worked day and night to stand by Yar’ Adua.

“He had gone out of his way to campaign for the presidential candidate. Even in the absence of the presidential candidate, Obasanjo was moving around campaigning because he was willing to ensure that his successor come into power.

“This one that the president and the vice president are sitting on the fence, even the governors are not sincere.”

Speaking further, Shettima stated that APC governors are not sincere and urged Tinubu not to rely on them as they may disappoint him.

He asked Tinubu to liaise and discuss with Nigerians, CSOs, and organizations and not rely on governors.

He said: “Tinubu has less than five governors with him, the others are just supportive. The earlier he moves and changes strategy, the better for him, Kashim Shettima, and APC.”

diadem10:
Which Yoruba Christian? Liar..

E no go better for you and your family if you or any of your family lives in Lagos, governed by Tinubu. a nuisance

Jones4190:
A local champion built his party ACN from the scratch, won 6 states, had 6 governors from 2 regions, 19 Senators including Ngige from the SE, and 50 HOR members, the Minority leader seat of the NASS, 136 House of Assembly members. Tell us anyone else who did it like him.

BOLATINUBU01:
u this boy are you mad? Which one is Yoruba Christian, y are you shy to name ur tribe chinedu

drlateef:
Group of hungry imbeciles. Resource control and true federalism is what all presidential candidates agree on.

plaindealer:
How come Pandora ipobs and Andre Liver Salt people no dey show us full picture and shots from above..?

Clowns, we know the trick, gather your meager people in the front and take the picture to make it look like a lot of people..

If den born you well, show us drone pictures..


Comedians.

9jii:
Blasphemy, Kai Obi people please leave our religion out of your nonsense

lexylaw40:
Okay but to be very honest, we Yoruba Christians will never vote Tinubu on Muslim-Muslim ticket because we are not fools. Even MURIC terrorists told Yoruba Muslims not to vote Yoruba Christians and they all agree. Christians are not slaves or second class citizens in Nigeria.

What an awesome and energising crowd in Minna. I am grateful, and delighted to be here. Thank You Niger State.

#PeterObi ��

oyin44:
we Yoruba Christians will never vote Tinubu on Muslim-Muslim ticket because we are not fools. Even MURIC terrorists told Yoruba Muslims not to vote Yoruba Christians and they all agree. Christians are not slaves or second class citizens in Nigeria.

Kingsmeal:
The incoming First and 2nd families of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 2023.

Don't you guys like what you see?

nairamaniac:
see curse

leokid866:
AMEN.....Can you say the same for yours?

Ayodeoba:
amen and my support is for tinubu

By Chiagozie Nwonwu, Fauziyya Tukur, and Yemisi Oyedepo

BBC Global Disinformation Team
A BBC investigation has discovered that political parties in Nigeria are secretly paying social media influencers to spread disinformation about their opponents ahead of general elections in February.

The BBC's Global Disinformation Team has spoken to whistle-blowers working for two of Nigeria's political parties, and prominent influencers who have described it as "an industry".

The whistle-blowers say parties give out cash, lavish gifts, government contracts and even political appointments for their work.

We changed their names to protect their identity. "Yemi" is a prominent strategist and "Godiya" a politician.

"We've paid an influencer up to 20m naira ($45,000; £37,000) for delivering a result. We've also given people gifts. Other people prefer to hear: 'What do you want to do in government, be a board member, be a special assistant?'," says Godiya.

Reconstruction with an actor of the interview with "Godiya"

"Godiya", a politician from one of Nigeria's parties, says influencers have been paid up to $45,000 for delivering a result.

Situation rooms are commonplace in the run-up to an election. It's where political parties strategise, develop plans and monitor their campaigns' success. But in the rooms the whistle-blowers described to us, there was another function: following how false narratives assigned to influencers were performing.

Strategist Yemi says fake stories are developed to improve their candidates' chances: "You can deliberately misinform in a suitable way for you."

The BBC has spoken to multiple influencers who have confirmed that payment in exchange for false political posts is widespread.

One influencer who asked not to be named - with almost 150,000 Facebook followers - told us he is paid by political parties to post completely false stories about political opponents. He says he does not do it openly but rather plants false stories through other micro-influencers he hires.

Separately, Rabi'u Biyora is a major influencer known for supporting the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) party.

He told us he was "wooed" by an opposition party to stop promoting the APC's candidate, and give his support to their candidate instead.

Posts on his Facebook timeline confirm he did just that. He told us he did not receive gifts of any kind to do so. But we discovered a Facebook post from 2019 in which he said he received a car and money from a party in exchange for his support on social media.

We put this finding to him, but he stopped responding to us.

Tactics
With an estimated 80 million Nigerians online, social media plays a huge role in national debates about politics. Our investigation uncovered different tactics used to reach more people on Twitter. Many play on divisive issues such as religious, ethnic and regional differences.

In July, influencers widely shared posts associating Kashim Shettima, the APC's candidate for vice-president, with members of the Islamist militant group Boko Haram.

This false narrative gained momentum on Twitter and was shared thousands of times, spilling onto WhatsApp and other platforms.

Using reverse image search, we found that those in the picture with Mr Shettima were nomadic Fulani parents whose children he had enrolled in secular schools in 2017, not members of Boko Haram.

Tweet associates APC vice presidential candidate Kashim Shettima with Boko Haram; instead he was having a meal with Fulani parents

A reverse image search revealed that the men were nomadic Fulani whose children Mr Shettima had enrolled in western schools in 2017 and not Boko Haram members.

A month later, influencers promoted a claim without evidence that Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi was linked to, and following orders from, the Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob) - a separatist movement designated in Nigeria as a terror group. His party denies this.

Those who shared this information included Reno Omokri - special assistant to former opposition President Goodluck Jonathan - who has more than two million followers on Twitter.

When approached for a comment, Reno Omokri said he stands by his accusations, but insists he has not been paid by the main opposition People's Democratic Party (PDP) to campaign on their behalf.

Meanwhile, false claims that the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, fell ill and was rushed out of the country have been shared several times on Twitter.

Godiya, the politician we interviewed, says political parties tell influencers to elicit as much emotion as they can with their paid posts.

"We use images that may not even be relevant to the story we are trying to spin. We can take pictures from East Africa in the 1990s in warzones and attach them to a tweet about how my ethnic group is being killed. When people get emotional they retweet, they like, and it gets traction," she says.

According to the whistle-blowers, the hired influencers are sometimes given an idea that they should frame in their own words. At other times, they are given the actual tweets that need to be published at specific times.

They say influencers are paid based on the number of followers they have. They also say payment happens mostly in cash to avoid a paper trail.

Moral compass
It is not illegal for political parties to hire social media influencers in Nigeria, but spreading disinformation on social media is a breach of the country's laws and Twitter's policy.

The BBC has asked Nigeria's main political parties, APC, PDP, and the Labour Party, about the whistle-blowers' allegations. They did not reply to our request for comment.

False messages tend to spill offline - travelling from Twitter to news programmes, becoming real conversations on the streets of Nigeria
In response to our findings, Twitter has taken down some of the accounts we reported to them and said it had a responsibility to protect electoral conversations from interference, manipulation, and false information.

However, there are concerns about the platform's capacity to tackle misinformation in Africa after Elon Musk's takeover of the company, when its continental headquarters in Ghana was closed and nearly all its staff fired.

The BBC has reached out to Twitter again after these changes, but received no response.

Idayat Hassan, director at the Centre for Democracy and Development, says the activities of these influencers amounted to "political interference".

"It is undermining trust in democracy, undermining trust in the electoral system, and it is instigating conflict," she says.

But politician Godiya sees it a different way, and defends the tactic: "It is a game. Somebody had to win, and God help me, I will not be on the losing side."

DenreleDave:
Obi met with someone and u still found a way to include BAT

It was a pleasure to meet with the Director, Africa and South Asia Strategy, London Stock Exchange Group, Mr Ibukun Adebayo and his team.

#PeterObi ��

Adaisback:
Truth be told, walahi, Dino nailed it. Dear Nigerians , I no dey fear Pablo Escobar na that Osama bin laden of Nigeria be my problem. You can't compare drugs with bombs. May God not turn Nigeria especially south west to a desolate place through bombing. Pls my people , let's save this country with our PVC. Take a look at Tinubu, me and you both know he won't be in charge of his govt , Osama bin Shetim will and that's my fear.

Tinubuadvocate:
Very very childish statement coming from agaba friyahoo.

leokid866:
and yet you put the picture of a man whose major business is importation......it's like going to a butchers shop for dietary advice, what do you think he will suggest, salad or meat?

leokid866:
AMEN.....Can you say the same for yours?

Ayodeoba:
amen and my support is for tinubu