The Centre for Democracy and Development(CDD) has described the spreading of fake and unsubstantiated news as the major threat to the success of the Saturday Governorship election in Ekiti
The Civil Society body appealed to the federal government,particularly the Independent National Electoral Commission and security age cues to begin clampdwon on peddlers of fake news to protect the integrity of the electoral process in the country.
The CDD Director, Idayat Hassan, ,said this at a preelection press conference held in Ado Ekiti, on Friday.
The CDD boss, represented by a Senior Programme, Austin Aigbe,
revealed that the organisation has deployed 205 trained election observers to protect electoral integrity across the 16 local governments .
The CDD boss added that the deployed observers had been mandated to report issues that threaten the credibility of the poll for onward transmission to INEC and police for proactive action and prevention of such occurrences in the future elections.
Hassan warned against the preponderance of fake news in election, describing it as the most visible and mind boggling evil threatening the Saturday election, which he said was also capable of derailing the electoral process.
"Some of these news are meant to divide the polls, mislead the voters , affect turnout and incite electoral violence.
"In the last one week, the CDD had heard about a news saying that Segun Oni had sealed a deal with Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to step down and work for APC to win. Another news that we got was that, the SDP Mega rally billed for Thursday was canceled, this also surfaced.
"There was another news that a court in Abuja had disqualified the APC Candidate, Biodun Oyebanji from the race. But our facts showed that all these were fake .
"So voters must be clever this time to know that not all the news that you get are read and spread. I also appeal to our people to desist from spreading any unconfirmed news to protect the credibility of this election"
Hassan however advised Ekiti voters to vote according to their consciences in the election and resist the temptation of vote buying that is gradually crippling the electoral system.
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