Information and Culture Minister, Lai Mohammed, yesterday bemoaned his ministry’s low budgetary allocations, which he said is incapacitating its war against fake news, disinformation and hate speech currently ravaging Nigeria.
Mohammed, speaking at the 2023 budget defence session with relevant agencies, before the Senate Committee on Information, said the recent terror alerts raised on Nigeria by the United States of America and United Kingdom, gave the nation’s economy a devastating blow.
He said that his ministry requires adequate funding to fight fake news, disinformation, misinformation and hate speech, saying the latest being the terror alert raised in Nigeria by the United States of America and the United Kingdom.
However, the Chairman of the Committee, Danladi Sankara, told the Minister that yearly budget cuts are not limited to the Information Ministry but all MDAs generally since the capital vote component of the federal budget itself dropped from N2.5trillion to N1 trillion.
A member of the Committee, Ibrahim Danbaba, assured him that budgetary votes will be made available for the Ministry on advocacy for the 2023 general elections.
