The Nigerian government, on Monday, asked the American based news outlet, the Cable News Network (CNN) to re-examine its investigative report on the Lekki shootings, which it (Nigerian government) had earlier dismissed as unfair and inaccurate.
The federal
government had earlier condemned the report, likening it to “a poor piece of
journalistic work.”
In a letter
addressed to the Vice President of CNN International Communications, Jonathan
Hawkins, signed by the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, the
federal government said “it reserves the right to take action within its laws
to prevent CNN from aggravating the #EndSARS crisis.”
“As a form of
remediation, Nigeria’s Federal Government demands an immediate and exhaustive
investigation from CNN into its ‘investigative’ report on the Lekki Toll Gate
incident to determine, among others, its authenticity, whether or not it met
the basic standards of journalism and also the selective use of unverified
social media videos to manipulate public opinion.
“While it is
up to CNN to accede or not, please note that the Federal Government reserves
the right to take any action within its laws to prevent CNN from aggravating
the #EndSARS crisis with unprofessional, irresponsible, one-sided, inciting and
sensational reporting that is capable of pitching Nigerians against themselves
and setting the country on fire,” he said.
Read the full
letter by the Nigerian government below:
Mr Jonathan Hawkins
VP, Communications
CNN Centre
Atlanta, Georgia
U.S
RE: HOW A
BLOODY NIGHT OF BULLETS QUASHED A YOUNG PROTEST MOVEMENT
Our attention
has been drawn to an ‘investigation’ by CNN, entitled ‘How a Bloody Night of
Bullets Quashed a Young Protest Movement’ and aired on 18 Nov. 2020, in which
the international news organization said it had ”uncovered that Nigerian
security forces opened fire on unarmed protesters” at the Lekki Toll Gate in
Lagos, Nigeria, during the #EndSARS protest.
We write to
put on record that the report did not just fall short of journalistic
standards, it reinforces the disinformation that is going around on the issue,
it is blatantly irresponsible and it is a poor piece of journalistic work by a
reputable international news organization.
In the first
instance, the report did not live up to the most basic of the core principles
of journalism – balance and fairness. According to the website
www.ethics.journalists.org, ”balance and fairness are classic buzzwords of
journalism ethics: In objective journalism, stories must be balanced in the
sense of attempting to present all sides of a story. Fairness means that a
journalist should strive for accuracy and truth in reporting, and not slant a
story so a reader draws the reporter’s desired conclusion.”
Rushing to
air such a momentous story without presenting the government’s side is
inexcusable and indefensible. CNN said it contacted over 100 protesters and
family members, but did not speak to one official of Nigeria’s federal
government. While CNN said there was no response from the army and that
officials of Lagos State would not speak in view of the Judicial Panel that is
investigating the matter, it did not say what effort it made to speak with any
official of the federal government.
The truth is
that CNN did not even attempt to reach the federal government. Nima Elbagir,
who presented the report and most probably led the investigation, is conversant
with the Minister of Information and Culture, who is also the Spokesman for the
Federal Government of Nigeria, yet did not say that she even tried to reach the
Minister. It is therefore strange, to say the least, that she would rush to air
such an important ‘investigation’ report without getting the government’s side.
In other words, Nima, and by extension CNN, breached the most basic of the core
principles of journalism – balance and fairness.
Another
serious breach by CNN, in its ‘investigation’, is that the network relied
heavily on unverified footages it harvested from social media.
CNN was not
present at the Lekki Toll Gate on the night of the incident. Neither its
reporter nor cameraman was there, but it relied on eyewitnesses. Well, this is
fraught with danger. While experts say eyewitness testimony is a potent form of
evidence, it is also subject to unconscious memory distortions and biases,
Unlike CNN, a reporter from the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Pidgin
Service, Damilola Banjo, was at the Lekki Toll Gate on the night in question,
and was quoted as saying soldiers shot sporadically into the air and not at the
protesters – a direct contradiction of the position taken by CNN who relied on
second and third-hand information.
In airing its
‘investigative’ report, CNN conveniently forgot that on Oct. 23rd 2020, it
emphatically tweeted, from its verified twitter handle, that the military
killed 38 people when it opened fire on peaceful protesters on Tuesday, Oct.
20th 2020. Almost a month later, the same CNN – after a supposedly exhaustive
investigation – is now reporting only one death from what the world was made to
believe was a massacre. Is CNN not embarrassed by this sharp climbdown? Has CNN
owned up to this and apologized for its faux paz?
It is also
interesting that while CNN obtained footage showing when the vehicles carrying
soldiers left their barracks and arrived at the Lekki Toll Gate, it could not
obtain any footage showing the bodies of those supposedly killed in the
‘massacre’. After all, forensic ballistic experts will most likely testify that
firing military grade weapons into a crowd will not leave anyone needing a
microscope to look for blood or bodies at the scene.
CNN has said
it stands by its story, and that ”our reporting was carefully and meticulously
researched”, This is baffling, considering that the story lacks fairness and
balance, as we have pointed out, and that the organization relied heavily on
manipulated social media videos. This resort to an escapist cliche seems more
like a face-saving measure by an otherwise respectable news network caught in
the blinding glare of ‘fake news and disinformation’ headlamps. Or how else
does one explain the arrogant defence of an international news network that
would not even respect the most basic principle of journalism?
One of CNN’s
star eyewitnesses in its ‘investigative’ reporting is DJ Switch. Unknown to
CNN, DJ Switch’s story on the Lekki Toll Gate shooting has changed several
times. From claiming she counted 78 bodies of protesters who were supposedly
killed by soldiers on the night of the Lekki Toll Gate incident, she has twice,
at least, changed the casualty figure from 78 to 15 and then to 7, without a
shred of evidence. CNN cannot pretend not to know that for anyone to act as a
witness, his or her credibility must be unimpeachable. DJ Switch’s credibility
does not meet that threshold.
In one of
social media videos of DJ Switch that was used by CNN (see attached link 1),
the lady (DJ Switch) claimed she and some unnamed persons carried dead bodies
and dropped them at the feet of the soldiers. She also claimed she spoke to
their Commander before the soldiers threw the bodies into the vans. Curiously,
for someone who was streaming live on Instagram during the Lekki Toll Gate
incident, there was not a single video or picture of the dead bodies. Not even
Godson (Uyi), another CNN star witness whose video was also used by the
network, or any of the hundreds of protesters, all armed with smart phones, at
the scene recorded a video or shot a picture of dead bodies being carried away
by soldiers.
Talking of
Godson, despite claiming to have analyzed hours of footage, it is curious that
CNN conveniently left out key parts of Godson’s 57-minute, 5-second video (see
attached link 2). For example, 13 minutes, 40 seconds into the video, there
were voices, in street lingo, in the background telling Godson that the
gunshots were not from the soldiers (na boys dey shoot, that na local gun
sound….it’s boys, meaning touts and hoodlums, who are shooting.
That’s local
gun). Some 20 minutes,14 seconds into the video, Godson confirmed that the boys
had brought out their guns and were shooting (local okah, he called it). Some
23 minutes, 14 seconds into the video, Godson said ‘wait, all these boys dey
shoot’ (meaning gunshots rang out from the touts/hoodlums). CNN, in its rush to
nail soldiers and tell a ‘radically different story’, conveniently left out
these parts of the Godson video, which could have shown that armed hoodlums
invaded the Lekki Toll Gate that night, and could have hit any of the
protesters as they shot sporadically. This is clearly a ploy by the CNN
reporter/presenter to manipulate viewers of its ‘investigative’ report and
force them to draw the reporter’s desired conclusion! Another video showing an
armed protester at the Lekki Toll Gate (see attached link 3) was apparently not
among the footage reviewed by CNN!
It is
shocking that all through its ‘investigation’, CNN did not for once mention the
fact that six soldiers and 37 policemen were killed during the #EndSARS crisis,
which also left 196 policemen injured, not to talk of the monumental
destruction of government and private properties across the country. Instead,
the network is fixated on the massacre that never happened. Are security agents
not human beings too? Are they not entitled to the protection of their human
rights?
For the
record, this is not the first time that CNN has carried an inaccurate or hoax
story about Nigeria. In February 2007, Nigeria accused CNN of staging one of
its reports from the country’s Niger Delta region, showing gunmen holding 24
Filipinos hostage. Of course, CNN and its then Africa Correspondent Jeff
Koinange flatly denied the charge, saying the network did not pay for any part
of the report. Later, in an email reportedly sent to a friend, Mr. Koinange was
quoted as saying: “Of course we had to pay certain people to get the story… You
do not get such a story without bribing.” So much for denials!
As a form of
remediation, Nigeria’s Federal Government demands an immediate and exhaustive
investigation from CNN into its ‘investigative’ report on the Lekki Toll Gate
incident to determine, among others, its authenticity, whether or not it met
the basic standards of journalism and also the selective use of unverified
social media videos to manipulate public opinion. While it is up to CNN to
accede or not, please note that the Federal Government reserves the right to
take any action within its laws to prevent CNN from aggravating the #EndSARS
crisis with unprofessional, irresponsible, one-sided, inciting and sensational
reporting that is capable of pitching Nigerians against themselves and setting
the country on fire.
Lai Mohammed
Hon. Minister
No comments:
Post a Comment