Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has said that after he tested negative to coronavirus, his next biggest headache is fake news.
He said this in reaction to a rumor that each member of the Presidential Taskforce on COVID-19 receives N500, 000 daily as sitting allowance.
At the group’s media briefing on Wednesday, he said:
“The issue I want to take on is that of the sitting allowance of half a million naira, paid to each of the members of the task force. You will remember that each time I come here, since I tested negative for Coronavirus, my other major problem has been fake news. As soon as I got that information, I consulted with my colleagues here whether I’m not a member of the task force and I asked them whether they’d received their own and they said no.
What bothers me is that since about 2 O’clock this afternoon I’ve been receiving text messages to send money to people; that they were broke, they had no money and I began to wonder, why today? Apparently, they are acting on this fake news that we receive half a million naira everyday.
The truth of the matter is that no member of the committee has received one penny, either for sitting or sleeping allowance, not even when we went to Lagos yesterday. So, you see this fake news is targeted at one thing alone: to distract the government from the more serious problem and task of containing and combating fake news. I want to say loud and clear; no member of the committee receives a penny as sitting allowance. Everybody sacrificed his time, energy and even sometimes his resources”, Mohammed said.
Also at the briefing, Secretary to the Federal Government, Boss Mustapha, said monies donated to the cause was intact.
