101 Fake News on EndSARS an In-depth Review by Aliyu Idris Ali

101 Fake News on EndSARS an In-depth Review by Aliyu Idris Ali

Title:           101 Fake News on EndSARS
Author:        Dahiru Mohammed Lawal
Genre:          Nonfiction
Date of Publication: 2021
Pages:          204
Publisher:     PR Nigeria

“It is not enough to EndSARS, If we don’t end fake news, fake news can violently end Nigeria.”-Air Comdr Yusuf Anas (rtd), Centre For Crisis Communication.

101 Fake News on EndSARS is a masterpiece of investigative journalism which reviews the incidence and misconceptions of the EndSARS protest that spreads like wildfire, the claims raised are just ignorance imposed by infatuations, some of the events have the elements of truth, but people nationwide change its narrative without a source fact.
The news of protest at every section was engineered by the influence of celebrities and other top individuals who did not have a true knowledge about the happenings, the menace of fake news ravages the Nigeria atmosphere especially on social media platforms because of freedom of speech given to every citizen, without a fact checks of events so many issues will be left unclarified, the menace will continue to evolve and will add myriad of problems to our nation apart from the ones that ravages it, antagonist messages, ungodly assumptions, detrimental falsehoods dominated the airspace of Nigeria with deadly elements of hatred which were hell-bent on sabotaging and inciting lies in the name of EndSARS protest.

However, social media platforms contributed a lot in engineering the protests, Nigeria being a nation amalgamated with different people is suffering from the religious bigotry and ethnic bigotry, the engineered protest permutate dozens of fake news serially.

Social media contributed a lot in causing the intense anger and tensions of Nigerians who think about their fellow regional members residing in another region of Nigeria, Social media also generated conspiracy theories and dogmas of viral videos that are not hundred percent related to the protest which Lawal provided a meticulous study of events and brought a convincing results using a reliable technological instruments(Google, Fact-Checks, Reverse Image Search, etc) during the course of his investigative studies and it actually revealed they are fake, the claims have no correlation with the facts.

In addition, it’s not only videos that were investigated but pictures that appears photoshopped which at the end showed no isomorphism in relation to the claim of the claimants, the most videly self-acclaimed and believed stories in a public domain are honestly not true and it’s beyond a reasonable doubt, most of the pictures and videos proved to be obsolete with wrong misleading captions to attract the attention of social media users.

Furthermore, the EndSARS protest prompted by the Nigerians especially the youths and the victims of SARS harassment brought several unverified news and reports, the fake news spread in the name of EndSARS has dominated every house and streets of Nigeria and the world at large, attention of foreign countries who have interest in the issues regarding Nigeria focused on the protest even after its occurrence.

The book is an explosion of thoroughly investigative journalism crafted in mind pleasing literariness and potrays undesirable false elements that used EndSARS protest to incite flames of unrest to set the country’s youths ablaze, it is an outstanding book about the truth of the historical protest in the postcolonial setting of civilised Nigeria.
The author did not only exposed falsehoods accusations and fake news on EndSARS protest, he singlehandedly provide a harnessing solutions and recommendations to abort repetition of such gargantuan scenarios.

In conclusion, if Nigerian Police Force dealt with its officers engaged in criminal extortion, torture and maltreatment of people in Nigeria, if the country’s government is enough to boost creative innovation among the citizens, if “ASUU Strike” did not become an annual ritual and we are patriotic enough to have the country at heart, the EndSARS protest will never happen, Nigeria is sitting on a keg of gunpowder it needs a least trigger to explode.

Thanks to the author and Manaja M Salis for gift of the book.

©Aliyu Idris