Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information and Culture, has asked those that always refer to him as “Lie” Mohammed  and accuse him of always telling a lie, to state one lie he has told since assuming office. The Minister said this in an interview with AIT Friday.

“People just have a mindset that whatever Lai Mohammed says cannot be true, but nobody has ever come out to say that I said `Y’ and it was `Z’ that happened. For me, I will remain focused because it is a price you pay for serving your country. I also see this as a deliberate strategy to whittle me down, but I must remain focused and will not be distracted.

I believe sincerely that the last election was fought very bitterly and I was largely the face of the party and I kept asking them to fight me on facts, not on emotions. Give me one thing that I have said which is not true. There is a Yoruba proverb that says that you can only wake up somebody who is sleeping, you cannot wake up a fellow who is pretending to fall asleep,’’ he said.

He added that Nigeria is currently under the seige of disinformation and fake news.

“The country today is under the siege of disinformation and fake news. Unfortunately this dangerous trend, if not checked by the media, especially the traditional media, is capable of tearing the fabric of the society and bringing the country to its knees. My greatest problem is with the traditional media, because most people will probably say social media is what it is.

But when the traditional media also latches on the same fake news and the same disinformation, then I begin to get worried for many reasons. Number one, it affects the credibility of the media itself and once the media is no longer believed, once the media loses its credibility, then it has serious consequences for the media and the society as a whole.”