Author: Chris Kodo

Numerous websites that emerged during Nigeria’s February 2023 elections, as uncovered by the BBC, are disseminating false information and gaining substantial visibility.

If there are many ads on websites, it could mean that they are making money by spreading false or misleading information.

They create untrue stories mixed with real news about sports, entertainment, and politics. Some of them even publish up to 700 pieces per month. They also like or criticize politicians in Nigeria.

Nearly seven months have passed since the intense elections took place. However, the country is still greatly split, as seen in the response to the recent verdict regarding the opposition’s objection to the election results.

These websites are spreading false information that could be making these divisions worse.

Lawyer Mojirayo Ogunlana recalls seeing unfamiliar stories on Twitter, which are now called X, from websites she had not encountered before, during the period before the elections. Many people were also joining her WhatsApp groups. She said there was a lot of fake news and it was too much to handle. Almost every day, false information was being spread on social media. “It made me lose trust,” Ms. Ogunlana explains

Mayowa Tijani, who studies false information, keeps track of how popular websites are becoming. He says that their stories became widely talked about during the elections and had a noticeable effect. He says that they keep spreading untrue stories.

Now, if one website makes up a false story, it is likely that other websites will share it and it becomes popular on social media. “They assist in pushing it further, causing it to go offline and spread even more. Eventually, it becomes the main story,” he explains.

The BBC Global Disinformation Team looked at three new websites: Podium Reporters, which was made in 2021, Reportera, which was made in July 2022, and Parallel Facts, which was made in May 2023. Tijani said there was a reason for creating them at those specific times.
During the campaign and afterwards, all three main candidates had false news stories about them published on the websites we studied.

Bola Tinubu, a member of the ruling APC party, became president after winning a close election with 37% of the total votes. The candidates who came in second and third place, Atiku Abubakar of the PDP and Peter Obi of the Labour Party, are still disputing his election. Last week, the election tribunal said no to their complaints. However, they plan to take their case to the Supreme Court.

Politicians also told stories from the internet to gain more popularity. Festus Keyamo, who is currently the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, shared many stories from Podium Reporters during the elections.

Mr Obi joined two Twitter discussions called Twitter Spaces with Parallel Facts. In one of these discussions, the website’s activity increased from less than 10,000 mentions to 40,000 mentions between May and July 2023.

The website belongs to Kingsley Izuchukwu Okafor, who says he is interested in technology, public relations, and standing up against “bad governance” on his social media profiles. He has previously posted a picture of Peter Obi, saying “Obi is the man”.

The slogan of the website is “We don’t use misleading headlines, false information, or propaganda”. However, what we discovered is different.

Between 19 June and 15 July, the BBC found many news stories with lies on the website Parallel Facts. A news article published on 27 June said that Yakubu Mahmood, who leads Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (Inec), was attempting to unlawfully give the APC political party 25% of the votes in Abuja.

However, there is no proof that Inec or Mr. Mahmood changed the election results in the capital as they were accused of.

Even though fact-checking agencies have proven that many untrue stories like this are not true, they still continue to be shown or not corrected.
A place in Nigeria where newspapers were being sold, before the final results of the presidential election were told to the public.

Reportera is a website that supports and has a political preference for the Labour Party. In a tweet that they have made important, they state that they do not accept or acknowledge Mr. Tinubu’s government

In just one month, the website shared four stories that were proven to be untrue. One of these stories said that President Tinubu came in third place during the election.

It also gave wrong information about a BBC investigation on the vote. In a story that was published on June 28, Reportera stated that the BBC found evidence that voters were prevented from voting and said that Mr Tinubu couldn’t be declared the winner.

But the BBC investigation did not reach that conclusion. This means that in certain areas in Rivers State, the number of votes for the Labour Party decreased, and the votes for the APC increased.

The BBC used information from Inec’s results-viewing portal to show that the Labour Party should have received the most votes in the state, not Mr. However, we didn’t have any proof that this happened in other parts of the country, so we couldn’t say that he shouldn’t have won the election.

The story mentioned that Reportera did a “review”, but it didn’t explain how it figured out that Mr Obi supposedly won. Instead, it referred to a poll on Twitter where 93% out of 31,000 people said that Mr Obi was the winner of the election.

Recently, the person who owns the website, Nnamdi Ibezim, confessed in a statement that they posted a story that was “based on a rumor”. On social media, Mr. Ibezim says he is a business person who has knowledge in many different areas.

According to his website’s story, published on August 6th, it was said that the former Minister of Works and Housing in Nigeria, Babatunde Fashola, was assisting judges of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal in writing verdicts that favored the APC.

Mr Fashola later said that he wrote a letter to the Police Inspector General complaining about Repotera for making false claims and cyberstalking. Ibezim said that his brother, Chike Ibezim, got arrested by the Department of State Services (DSS) because of an article he published. Ibezim stated that the arrest was against the rules of the country’s constitution.

The Nigerian Police said they caught Chike Ibezim.

First, he says that it seemed like the websites were trying to support specific candidates in the election. However, he thinks that the publishers also wanted to make money from advertisements on their websites.

We talked to experts in the media industry to find out how much money these websites could be earning.

According to IT and Digital Marketing consultant Yusufuddeen A Yusuf, they can earn a monthly income ranging from $100 to $10,000 (£80 to £8,000).

“He says that stories that get a lot of attention will bring in a lot of visitors, which leads to a lot of money from advertisements. ”

But according to Adebayo Ilupeju, a consultant at Africa Media Works who focuses on digital media and public relations, these websites may not be making money yet because they are still relatively new. “It’s a way to put money into something,” he says.

We contacted Podium Reporters, Reportera, and Parallel Facts. They ignored our emails asking about the untrue news on their websites and how much money they earn from ads.

At the same time, the website Podium Reporters shares positive stories about the ruling APC.

On 4 July, 2023, an article was published giving an opinion about the Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob), a group that wants to separate from Nigeria and has been declared a terrorist organization by the government.

It had a lot of untrue accusations. For instance, it stated that Ipob officially chose Mr Obi as their candidate. The Podium Reports often link Mr. Obi with Ipob in their stories. We found seven instances of this in a month.

BothObi and his party say they have no connection to Ipob, and the group has never publicly supported him.

We couldn’t prove that Podium Reporters belongs to someone.