The Federal Government has taken steps to authorize an unfamiliar news source, CNN, over its report on the supposed...
shooting of End SARS protesters by officers at the Lekki toll gate on October 20, 2020.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, who made this known at a public interview in Abuja on Thursday portrayed the report by the unfamiliar news medium as "irresponsible journalism".
He depicted the occasion of October 20, 2020 as a "massacre without bodies."
Mohammed likewise demanded that not a solitary body has been delivered or a solitary family has come out to guarantee their relative was killed at the Lekki toll gate.
The clergyman likewise affirmed that CNN depended via online media video without check to create its report.
"Like everyone else, I watched the CNN report. I must tell you that it reinforces the disinformation that is going round, and it is blatantly irresponsible and a poor piece of journalistic work by a reputable international news organization.
“CNN engaged in incredible sensationalism and did a great disservice to itself and to journalism.
“In the first instance, CNN, which touted its report as an exclusive investigative report, sadly relied on the same videos that have been circulating on social media, without verification.
“This is very serious and CNN should be sanctioned for that.
“CNN merely said the videos were ”obtained by CNN”, without saying wherefrom and whether or not it authenticated them.
"Were CNN reporters and cameramen at the Lekki Toll Gate that evening? If the answer is no, on what basis were they reporting?
“If CNN had done its investigation properly, it would have known how fake news and disinformation were trending during the End SARS crisis.
“The BBC even did a report on this, and we recommend that report to CNN. Talking about the BBC, a reporter with the BBC’s Pidgin Service, Damilola Banjo, was at Lekki Toll Gate protest ground that night.
”She was quoted as saying soldiers were indeed at the Toll Gate but they shot ‘’sporadically into the air’’ and not at the protesters. CNN that was not at the scene reported otherwise.
“In its jaundiced reporting, CNN was blind to the fact that six soldiers and 37 policemen were killed in unprovoked attacks.
“Obviously, CNN did not consider the security agents human enough," he said.
