During an event in Lagos commemorating Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka’s 90th birthday, Lai Mohammed, the former Minister of Information and Culture, disclosed how social media nearly jeopardized his four-decade-long marriage.
Mohammed recounted facing significant challenges during his tenure as minister, particularly in combating the proliferation of fake news, misinformation, and disinformation.
Reflecting on the profound impact of these issues, Mohammed highlighted how they posed a threat to his personal life, nearly causing irreparable damage to his marriage due to the spread of false information.
“Permit me to share publicly with you today for the first time, how social media threatened the foundation of my forty-year-old marriage.
“It was sometime in 2018 when I came to Lagos from Abuja for an official assignment. As usual, I retired to bed about midnight, but at about 3 am, my wife gently roused me from my slumber.
“At first, I panicked, fearing that there had been a security breach, but my wife’s mien belied that possibility, for she was calm and composed.
“Solemnly, my wife asked me if I was fully awake as there were some serious issues to discuss,” he said.
The former minister described the accusation from his wife as “bombshell”.
He said he could not believe that his wife could believe the fake story in circulation crediting huge sums of money in overseas accounts to government functionaries/ministers under former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
According to him, social media remain the platforms of choice for the purveyors of fake news, anti-state groups, anarchists, secessionists, terrorists and bandits.
He noted that while in government, his ministry uncovered 476 online publications that were dedicated to spreading fake news against the previous administration.
The former minister said fake news has become exponential through the use of Artificial Intelligence and deep learning techniques to create highly realistic fake or manipulated videos, audio recordings or images.
