By Dada Olusegun
Nigeria is a nation made up of largely religious people who are deeply conservative. Topics revolving around religion usually evoke sharp emotion-laden reactions just like those with tribal undertones. Unfortunately, many unscrupulous persons within the political elites have mastered the art of exploiting these weaknesses to further their political agenda.
Last Thursday, the Nigerian media space (both mainstream and social media) was buzzing with talks of President Bola Tinubu’s administration agreeing to sign the Samoa Agreement, a partnership deal between the European Union on behalf of its member countries and the member countries of Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) spanning six priority areas.
The genesis of the buzz was however, a completely false narrative by a lawyer, Sonnie Ekwowusi criticising the Nigerian government for going ahead to sign the Samoa Agreement, which he said contained LGBT clauses, after previously refusing to sign the agreement in November 2023 when the deal was formalised in the island nation of Samoa. Sonnie Ekwowusi is the Chairman, Human and Constitutional Rights Committee, African Bar Association (AfBA) and also a visiting member of the ThisDay Editorial Board.
Mr. Ekwowusi wrote an opinion piece a day earlier where he said, “Certain Articles of the Agreement especially Articles 2.5 and 29.5 legalise LGBT, transgenderism, abortion, teen sexual abuse, and perversity in African countries. The signing of the Agreement by Nigeria constitutes a threat to the sovereignty of Nigeria and Africa. It further debases our democracy.”
Mr. Sonnie Ekwowusi went on to accuse the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Atiku Bugudu of ignorance about the implication of the deal. He said, “I can wager that neither Minister Atiku Bagudu nor the Nigerian officials or diplomats who signed the Samoa Agreement on our behalf, understand the import of the agreement to Nigeria’s sovereignty, let alone the destructive impact of the Agreement in Nigeria.”
Daily Trust, a national daily who in recent times has increasingly allowed itself to be used as a platform for fake news adventures by desperate politicians, then amplified Mr. Sonnie Ekwowusi’s ignorant opinion piece on Thursday. Thus, the fake news conflagration began to spread wildly. Daily Trust showed gross unprofessionalism and highly unethical media practice by deliberately amplifying an outright false opinion, which it ought to know has the ability to threaten Nigeria’s fragile national security.
In fact Daily Trust was so irresponsible that it repeatedly doubled down on its false claims even when various voices including that of the federal government, Nigerian Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), Nigerian Bar Association etc, categorically stated that 172-page never mentioned LGBT in any clause.
The fake news hatchet job by Daily Trust using the firewood of misinformation fed it by Sonnie Ekwowusi, a known anti-Tinubu critic, was a well orchestrated plot crafted by opposition politicians seeking to grab power through any means in 2027 to put up the country in flames using this LGBT smokescreen as a trigger. They surmised that if that only way to make the Tinubu administration look bad in the eyes of voters especially the deeply religious voters across the north and south was to create an impression that the administration had signed the Samoa deal to legitimise LGBT relationships in Nigeria in exchange for a phantom $150 billion loan package from the EU.
To further prove that the Samoa misadventure led by Daily Trust and Mr. Sonnie Ekwowusi was a specifically grand plot by Alhaji Atiku Abubakar’s camp meant to cause widespread disaffection and instigate mayhem, moments after Daily Trust amplified the erroneous Samoa LGBT narrative, prominent online influencers under the payroll of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar were in overdrive riling up Muslims especially with the mocking narrative that the APC’s Muslim-Muslim ticket has ended up legalising LGBT in the country in exchange for loans and call on Nigerians to take to streets to protest.
Some Clerics who had not read the contents of the Samoa Agreement but relied on the media narrative being spearheaded by Daily Trust went to their congregation to spread the fake news – exactly what the purveyors of the fake news wanted. In fact, a sponsored protest was even organised in Kano to protest against the non-existent LGBT clause in the Samoa Agreement.
It took the relentless pushback by both the federal government and many patriotic voices to reasonably neutralise the misinformation and force Daily Trust to publicly apologise and acknowledge that its report was misleading and that the Samoa Agreement that Nigeria signed had no LGBT clause in it. It is almost certain that Daily Trust had to retract its publication after the federal government reported the rogue media house to the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association of Nigeria and made moves to sue Daily Trust for acts bordering on threat to national security and stability. This is how mischievous they were.
It is difficult to understand how an old media house like Daily Trust and most bizarrely a lawyer of Mr. Sonnie Ekwowusi’s status would so brazenly show mischievous ignorance about a straightforward matter like an international treaty. First, is the fact that they conveniently forgot that any international agreement Nigeria signs must be ratified by the national assembly before it becomes domesticated in Nigeria. Secondly, Sonnie Ekwowusi of all people should know that before Nigeria signs any treaty, the treaty is subjected to vetting by the Ministry of Justice and other relevant agencies to ensure that all the provisions in the proposed treaty are for the overall interest of Nigeria and most importantly conforms with all our existing laws.
In this Samoa Agreement, this was obviously carried out by the federal government. The Samoa Agreement was reached in November 2023, Nigeria at the time did not sign the agreement as it wanted to scrutinise all the provisions contained therein. This was done by the Ministry of Justice and other relevant ministries in consultation with other stakeholders such as the bar association and even religious bodies. It is therefore shocking that Daily Trust and Sonnie Ekwowusi would choose to go down this treasonous path.
For Daily Trust, this behavior should however not be totally surprising because for the past one year, the media house has formed the uncanny habit of fabricating totally false news with some screaming banner headlines to further the agenda of their pay masters, whose singular objective is to heat up the polity and probably orchestrate a regime change in Nigeria through an insurrection or at worst alienate northern voters from President Bola Tinubu.
It should be recalled that in the aftermath of the coup in Niger Republic, Daily Trust championed a completely false narrative that the Federal Government was driving the country into a war and polluted it with regional sentiments to cause disaffection especially among northern communities that share both boundaries and cultural ties with many communities in Niger Republic.
This same Daily Trust also used its platform to propagate a baseless accusation that the federal government was working on siting foreign military bases in the Nigeria following withdrawal of French military from Niger Republic. They provided no single evidence to back up their claims. In fact, most recently Daily Trust once again manufacture a false report that the Federal Government had renamed the Murtala Mohammed Expressway in Abuja to Wole Soyinka Way. This of course was targeted at creating bad blood between northerners and the Tinubu administration.
From the foregoing, it becomes immediately apparent that Daily Trust is on a wicked mission to set Nigeria ablaze using the subtle tools of fake news and misinformation. They are most likely on retainership by enemies of Nigeria and desperate opposition politicians to constantly create narratives that are capable of plunging Nigeria into crisis along tribal or religious lines. However, their agenda will come to nothing because right-thinking Nigerians have now taken upon themselves to quench every drop of misinformation that emanates from Daily Trust going forward. The likes of Daily Trust and Sonnie Ekwowusi cannot be allowed to re-create Rwanda in Nigeria!