The BBC has discovered that several websites launched around the time of the general elections in Nigeria in February 2023 are disseminating fake information to thousands of individuals.
Consequently, the BBC Global Disinformation Team has analysed three of these new websites allegedly culpable for fake news in the run-up to the 2023 elections: Podium Reporters, registered in 2021, Reportera, in July 2022, and Parallel Facts, in May 2023.
The websites may be making money from the propagation of misinformation because of the abundance of advertisements there.
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They mix true news about politics, culture, and sports with bogus rumours; some of them publish as many as 700 pieces per month. Additionally, they support or criticise Nigerian politicians.
Almost seven months after the fiercely contested elections, the country remains deeply divided, as witnessed in the reaction to last week’s ruling on the opposition challenge to the results.
The disinformation spread by these websites may be fuelling these divisions.
In a period of one month, between 19 June and 15 July, the BBC counted several news stories containing falsehoods on Parallel Facts’ website. A story published on 27 June claimed that Yakubu Mahmood, chairman of Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (Inec), was “trying to criminally give APC 25%” of the votes in Abuja.
But there is no evidence that Inec or Mr Mahmood altered the results of the elections in the capital as claimed. Although many false stories like this have been debunked by fact-checking agencies, they still remain on air or uncorrected.
Reportera is another website which leans politically towards the Labour Party. In a pinned tweet, it declares it does not recognise Mr Tinubu’s government. In a period of one month, the website published four verifiably false stories, including one that claimed that President Tinubu actually came third in the election.
It also misrepresented a BBC investigation on the vote. In a story published on 28 June, Reportera claimed that the BBC “concluded that there was a clear case of voter suppression” and Mr Tinubu could not have been declared the winner.
More recently, the owner of the website, Nnamdi Ibezim, admitted in a statement to have published a story “based on a rumour”. On social media, Mr Ibezim describes himself as an entrepreneur and a polymath.
His website’s story, published on 6 August, said that former Minister of Works and Housing in Nigeria Babatunde Fashola was helping judges of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal write verdicts in favour of the APC.
Fashola subsequently announced he had written a petition to the Inspector General of Police accusing Repotera of “False Allegation and Cyberstalking”.
Mr Ibezim reported that his brother Chike Ibezim was arrested by the Department of State Services (DSS) on account of that publication and released a statement claiming the arrest was unconstitutional.
