{"id":8167,"date":"2021-06-14T09:06:33","date_gmt":"2021-06-14T08:06:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/?p=8167"},"modified":"2021-06-14T09:41:08","modified_gmt":"2021-06-14T08:41:08","slug":"the-factchecker-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/the-factchecker-11\/","title":{"rendered":"The FactChecker"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

How Nigeria\u2019s ex-lawmaker spread falsehood on COVID-19 vaccine, mislead followers<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

By Kemi Busari<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To many Nigerians, Dino Melaye is a man of several talents \u2013 a vocal politician, activist in early years and author of a book. Outside politics, the former senator\u2019s skills in singing and dancing, which he deploys in his political battles, arguably endear him to Nigerians the most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In one of his \u2018hit songs\u2019 popularly titled \u2018ajekun iya\u2019, Mr Melaye was seen dancing and singing after a senate committee acquitted him in an alleged case of certificate forgery. In several others, he would mock his political opponents, and sometimes praise God for victories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With this mix of talent and a political career constantly laced with controversies, the former lawmaker who represented his people at both the House of Representatives and the Senate, constantly engages his millions of followers on the social media, especially on Twitter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This engagement took a new life in 2020 when Mr Melaye started tweeting on the COVID-19 pandemic. Beginning from late 2020, he has released a series of tweets on vaccination against the novel coronavirus, mostly untrue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using the \u2018tweet content\u2019 feature on Tweet Deck and a keyword search of \u2018COVID-19\u2019 and \u2018vaccine\u2019, over a dozen tweets containing purported factual information on vaccination were traced to Mr Melaye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An analysis of the reach and effect of some of his tweets shows that through millions of primary reach and thousands of reproduction, Mr Melaye\u2019s conjectural tweets on vaccination have real life effects. With over two million Twitter followers, even at the time the virus was detected, Mr Melaye\u2019s words were words of authority to many. Only a few Nigerian politicians have more followers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, we take a look at the tweets and their metrics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fact-checkers\u2019 treasure trove<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On December 31, 2020, the World Health Organisation (WHO) approved the Pfizer\/BioNTech vaccine for emergency use against the virus. Two weeks earlier, Mr Melaye had put out a video on Twitter to advise his followers on the expected vaccine. Way Back Machine only crawled on Mr Melaye\u2019s Twitter page once in 2020. By then (December 16, 2020), he had about 2.55 million followers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue reading here<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fact Checks of the week<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n