The Cable News Network (CNN) has retracted its initial report, which said operatives of the Nigerian Army killed 38 persons at the Lekki Tollgate in Lagos State on October 20, 2020.
The international broadcasting station did this retraction on its Twitter handle it titled: “Clarification.”
In the “Clarification,” CNN said it did not attribute the death toll to Amnesty International and also failed to say in the report that the 38 persons killed were not just at the Lekki tollgate but across the country during the #EndSARS protest.
Clarification: This tweet from October 23 did not attribute the death toll from protests in Nigeria to Amnesty International. The tweet also did not make it clear that the death toll was for protests across the country. https://t.co/NAe7IegFrC
— CNN Africa (@CNNAfrica) November 26, 2020
It tweeted: “Clarification: This tweet from October 23 did not attribute the death toll from protests in Nigeria to Amnesty International. The tweet also did not make it clear that the death toll was for protests across the country.”
But it did both in its tweets and reports anchored by Stephanie Busari on the incident as attached to this report.The Nigerian Government had through the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, written a protest letter to the Management of CNN complaining about the authenticity of a report that put together various videos of the Lekki Tollgate shooting.
However, CNN followed it up with a Part 2 of the report. The Nigerian Army had also disputed both the initial report on the October 20, 2020 shooting and the two parts report on the video evidences CNN claimed justified its position on the shooting incident.
Few hours after the LEKKI INCIDENT, it was gathered that some Nigerians and agents of fake news propagation took to to twitter to post that “78. Murdered. In cold-blood.” the post generated over 6000 retweets and over 4000 likes and where further quoted by some overzealous journalist in an attempt to be the first to Break the News.
In a similar reaction, the handler in question also took time to make a twitter thread to this effect to further mislead the public in what could be characterized as a campaign of calumny against the Nigerian Military and the Nigerian Army in particular.
The people that disgust me the most are those who were complaining about how protesters were "inconveniencing them"
People are protesting against being killed and all you cared about was your stupid convenience?
Well,78+ dead,anarchy is upon us. How about that for "convenience"
— Kelvin Odanz (@MrOdanz) October 21, 2020
Reactions to the “Clarification” by CNN had been pouring in since it was done at about 10:05pm Nigerian time on Thursday. However, the broadcaster has not said anything on the two parts report that followed in the last one week. In-view of this development, it will be in-sync that these fake news handlers also retract their posts and also apologies to the Nigerian Military and the Nigerian Army in particular.
