Vice President Kashim Shettima has lastly damaged the silence concerning the circumstances behind a viral {photograph} exhibiting him eating with a gaggle of Fulani folks.
Shettima addressed the difficulty through the 2025 Worldwide Press Institute Nigeria Convention and Annual Normal Assembly in Abuja.
He instructed contributors on the occasion, which centered on addressing media repression and safeguarding democratic accountability, that the picture had been misrepresented on-line by {groups} trying to hyperlink him with bandits and Boko Haram.
In line with him, the people within the picture had been half of a bigger group of displaced Fulanis who suffered extreme hardship when Boko Haram compelled them out of grazing areas in Sambisa forest and seized their livestock, leaving previously rich herders in excessive poverty.
Shettima recounted what number of of them later served as guards at colleges constructed by the Borno State authorities when he was governor, noting that their state of affairs mirrored the deeper socioeconomic roots of insurgency.
He mentioned he launched a wide-scale schooling initiative to interrupt the cycle of poverty among the many group, enrolling their kids at school and offering meals, clothes, and different incentives to win dad and mom’ belief.
He added that he intentionally created a specialised studying atmosphere for the youngsters, full with digital instructing instruments, constant meals, and transportation from their houses to encourage attendance.
In line with him, his common visits to the dad and mom, throughout which he shared meals to construct confidence, produced the viral picture now utilized by on-line actors to make false accusations.
Shettima confused that the picture resurfaced as a part of a broader sample of misinformation pushed by what he described as anarchic parts on social media.
He maintained that mainstream media didn’t promote the deceptive narrative and warned that unchecked social media falsehoods posed a rising threat to Nigeria’s democratic stability.
He additionally famous that public figures typically grow to be targets of such assaults, describing it as an unavoidable price of management.
He mentioned, “When Boko Haram moved to the Sambisa forest, they allowed the Fulanis to graze their livestock till conflict trickled all the way down to them that the Fulanis had been revealing data on the actions of the Boko Haram to the Nigerian army. So that they drove them away, confiscated all their livestock.
“Very rich people grew to become destitutes in a single day. Most of them grew to become my guards within the colleges the federal government was constructing throughout Borno State as a result of beneath the mayhem of Boko Haram, beneath it lies the actual trigger, which is excessive poverty. And schooling supplies us the best device of actually addressing the basis causes of insurgency and banditry.
“So we had been crazily massively constructing academic amenities and most of those Fulanis had been my guards in these amenities. I took it upon myself to interrupt the intergenerational switch of poverty, to achieve out to these Fulanis and enroll their children to high school. I used to be even giving them rice, beans, clothes gadgets, simply to persuade them to entrust their children to me in order that I can take them to high school.
“And I used to be not eager on mixing them with the native folks as a result of they’re the poorest of the poor. I even constructed a college, a particular faculty. All the school rooms had been air-conditioned, had been utilizing digital schooling aids, we had been feeding them two instances per day and we had been bringing buses. Buses had been conveying them from their houses to the college, simply to encourage the dad and mom.
“Repeatedly, each time I’m going on visits, I used to sit down down with the dad and mom, eat, chat, simply to win their confidence. A kind of footage not too long ago went viral, ‘Shetima eating with Bandits and Boko Haram’ in Maiduguri.
“However I’ve developed a thick pores and skin to such accusations, however not one of the severe media homes took these tales. So the best threat to our democracy and our nationwide survival just isn’t the mainstream media. The anarchists in social media are the best threat.
“I do know they may come after me. That’s the worth of management. There are severe commentators and there are mischief mongers.
“Maybe essentially the most sacred responsibility of the media, as I mentioned earlier, is the accountability of saving democracy. And I perceive that journalists and politicians typically benefit from the relationship of a cat and a mouse.”