Governor Dave Umahi of Ebonyi State has asked the Department of State Services (DSS) to go after Nigerians making unverified claims on social media.
Speaking on Thursday while featuring on Channels Television’s ‘Sunrise Daily’ programme, Umahi said those unguarded statements are capable of heating the polity.
Umahi, Chairman of the South East Governors Forum, also asked the Nigeria Police Force to arrest Nigerians making unsubstantiated statements online.
He noted that politicians making unguarded utterances on social media are responsible for the unrest being expreinced in Ebonyi state.
The governor added that the false claims made by the politicians are part of the reasons why total calm has not returned to the affected communities in his state.
He said, “The level of crimes in the country is as a result of unpatriotic acts of a lot of us. We, leaders, we come out on television and then we speak, indict other regions, we speak against other regions, we pick on the leader of a country and then castigate the leader of a country. There is no patriotism at all.
“The way to prevent this thing is that if you are making unsubstantiated statements in the social media, the police, the SSS, you should be invited to explain and this is no politics because the country cannot fold our hands and allow people to plunge the country into another war and this is very important.
“I was told that one of the world wars started with a family quarrel and so if you are making a statement on social media calling it freedom of speech, you must come to the law to substantiate it.
“What I have in the state now should have stopped but for the politicians who are making unguarded accusations and statements in the social media and then people outside the state will just cash on on that and emotions will rise and the problem will continue.”
