Nigerian Fact-checkers’ Coalition opens election situation room in Lagos, Abuja

The Nigerian Fact-Checkers Coalition (NFC) has opened its situation rooms for Nigeria’s 2023 general election starting Saturday, February 25, 2023.

The NFC election situation rooms located in Abuja, Lagos and the United Kingdom, will monitor the spread of election misinformation and disinformation targeted at inciting violence, promoting voter apathy, undermining trust in the electoral process and influencing the outcome of election.

Opeyemi Kehinde, editor at the FactCheckHub and NFC’s coordinator, said the situation room is poised to monitor ‘fake news’ purveyors, noting that Thursday’s dry run, held in Abuja, was to ensure effective work flow during the election.

“The role of the coalition in ensuring the election integrity is very significant because we understand the dangers that lurk around when misinformation is allowed to have its way in the electoral process,” Kehinde said.

Caroline Anipah, deputy director at the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) commended the NFC for its work.

“The NFC has been doing a tremendous work holding political candidates and their followers accountable since it was set up. It has been heavily involved in live presidential debate fact-checking, among others,” Anipah said.

“From the public reception of our work, we know we are doing things right, making a difference, and contributing to a cleaner information space – one devoid of the volume of misinformation that would have circulated without our work.”

The coalition, which was officially launched in June 2022, has observed various trends of misinformation and disinformation over the months running into the election.

“Some of the trends we have observed include the use of impersonation and digital mercenaries to insert certain narratives into mainstream conversation by manipulating Twitter Trending Topics,” Rosemary Ajayi, founder and lead researcher of Digital Africa Research Lab said.

“We have also documented the use of live video on Facebook and YouTube to stoke ethnic tensions and call for violence against certain ethnic groups on Election Day.”

The NFC consists of researchers, fact-checkers, social media monitors, editors, misinformation and disinformation experts drawn from the coalition partners.

The Abuja NFC situation room, which is linked virtually to others, is domiciled at the ICIR office in Abuja which also doubles as the coalition’s secretariat.