THE European Union Election Observation Mission, NIGERIA 2023, in its final report, has listed former minister of state for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo (SAN) and a former minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode, among top fake news purveyors that misled the public before and during the 2023 general elections.
According to the report, released on Tuesday, July 4: “There was an increased incidence of misleading information in the days leading up to and during the election. In many cases, false reports were spread by well-known personalities associated with political parties.”
Keyamo and Fani-Kayode were spokespersons for the President Bola Tinubu’s campaign organisation in the election.
The EU observers, in the report, cited instances where they dished out fake news as they campaigned for their candidate, noting: “On 12 February, Festus Keyamo from APC, promoted information published by a suspicious website, accusing Peter Obi of bribery. The story quickly became viral and was in few hours debunked.”
Keyamo had during the poll, circulated photos of a Chicago festival to misrepresent the turnout of supporters for Tinubu’s campaign rally in Sokoto.
The EU observers added: “Femi Fani-Kayode, a former minister of Aviation and an APC party member, made a claim on February 11, 2023, that the PDP presidential candidate, Abubakar, had a secret meeting with serving military generals in Abuja.
“He accused Atiku of wanting to incite chaos, provoke a coup d’état, and establish a new and unconstitutional order. Kayode posted this claim across multiple social media platforms, and it garnered 281.2k total impressions.
“The next day, he posted that the Army denied reports about a meeting between its officers and Atiku.”
But reacting to the EU report indictment, Keyamo said: “All the hoopla over that EU report is neither here nor there when it comes to legitimising or delegitimising the government of the day. That power or responsibility belongs to the judiciary.”
