Human rights group Amnesty International has been accused of amplifying fake news and has been given a seven-day ultimatum to leave the country, failing which it offices in Abuja and Lagos will witness an unprecedented level of civil disobedience.
The Centre for Africa Liberation and Socio-Economic Rights (CALSER) gave the warning on Wednesday in the nation’s capital, Abuja after accusing AI of continued amplification of the claim that multiple protesters were killed at Lekki toll gate “without proof”.
“The protesters might have made the misleading claim of a massacre at the Lekki tollgate and the lie that 78 people were killed, but it took Amnesty International’s amplification of that lie for the international community and supranational organisations to wrongly accuse and condemn Nigeria and its government,” CALSER’s Executive Director, Princess Ajibola said at a press conference.
“It is shocking that this credibility challenged organisation has continued to amplify the fake news it earlier published. We have seen Amnesty International’s operatives running the circuits in media houses to continue advancing the claim that there was a massacre.
“Amnesty International has failed to provide any evidence of a massacre, it has instead ramped up its fake news and has further undermined security in Nigeria in addition to the wave of arson and looting that its lies against the Nigerian authority had triggered.
“That wave of arson threatened the Nigerian economy to no end,” she said.
The group further warned that “Amnesty International’s offices and those of all its affiliated organisations and known supporters in Nigeria will be set upon the same way that “its agents destroyed critical assets in the country”.
“For Nigeria to rebuild, Amnesty International must be out of the way and be out of the way for good. CALSER, therefore, gives Amnesty International a seven-day ultimatum to leave Nigeria.
“The NGO’s failure to leave Nigeria will attract civil disobedience at its offices in Abuja and Lagos on a scale that will make the campaign of looting and arson it facilitated appear like child’s play,” said Ajibola.
By Abel Ejikeme