NAN-HG-6
Claims
By Sumaila Ogbaje
Abuja, Feb. 2, 2018 (NAN) Africa Check, the continent’s leading independent fact-checking organisation, says it is expanding its fact-checking operation in Nigeria to tackle false claims on health and development topics.
In a statement in Abuja on Friday, the Organisation’s Executive Director, Mr Peter Cunliffe-Jones, said the group was determined to promote the use of accurate health information in Nigeria.
Cunliffe-Jones said that this widened focus was supported by a 445,000-dollar grant from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and would run for 21 months.
He said the grant would enable Africa Check to expand its partnerships with Nigerian media and disseminate its fact-checks to a much wider audience.
Cunliffe-Jones said Africa Check would organise a workshop in Nigeria early in the year to bring together media and public health communicators to explore the best ways of ensuring that public health information were accurate.
“Africa Check is funded by a wide range of philanthropic institutions and members of the public who support its work.
“This diverse funding ensures that it remains independent and non-partisan.
“False claims can do harm whatever the topic but when they concern health and development issues, they can cost lives and hold back development.
“It is essential that the Nigerian public has access to accurate information on key topics from cures for leading diseases, to immunisation and nutrition so they can make informed choices,” he said.
Cunliffe-Jones said that Africa Check was set up in 2012 in Johannesburg to promote accuracy in public debate on the continent.
He said that in addition to Nigeria and South Africa, the organisation had offices in Kenya and Senegal and also ran the annual African Fact-Checking Awards, now in their fourth year.
According to him, it has worked in Nigeria since 2014, publishing reports into leading claims made about a wide range of topics,
Africa Check’s Nigeria Editor, Mr David Ajikobi, while welcoming the news, said it was a timely intervention that would help raise the level and quality of public discourse in the country.
According to Ajikobi, verifiable information helps us understand problems and perhaps presents the basis for their solutions.
“Better informed people have more choice in making decisions that could help improve their lives,” he added. (NAN)
OYS/JCE
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Edited by Chukwudi Ekezie