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The Dangote Love Saga & The Junk Journalism Of A Jet Age
Over the past week, Nigerian Billionaire, Aliko Dangote has made the rounds on social media in the wake of recent claims by an Instagram user, Bea Lewis, that the multi-billionaire had emotionally traumatized her after he pulled the plug on their amorous relationship.
“I dated the richest black man in the world. He broke my heart in 1000 pieces. I learned more from him than any person I’ve ever met. Communicating with a billionaire daily makes you see the world differently,” Lewis wrote on Instagram.
In a flash, the Nigerian business mogul found himself in the hornet’s nest; of course, the social media post, which was substantiated by a graphic image of the lady in question caressing Dangote on his left chin had sold a degree of believability around the story, sparking widespread reactions from Nigerians, particularly due to the fact that Dangote, in all his years of national and international fame, has never made the rounds on the media for reasons bordering on sexual promiscuity/indiscretion.
Only a few days after the controversial post which had been aimed towards publicly discountenancing the Nigerian businessman, new evidence has come to light which indicates that the photo of Africa’s richest man with this so-called lover may have been doctored, a fact which effectively strikes out the credibility of her claims.
Indeed, Dangote’s recent traction in the media, without any measure of exaggeration, takes us to de javu, a familiar place which we’ve found ourselves ever since the advent of social media and the junk journalism that has been promoted by it. As a medium, we may not be able to completely exonerate ourselves of our culpability in this regard, having also published the original story as popularized on social media; but then, it serves as a reminder how easy it can be to peddle false information by pandering towards an appearance of truth.
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It echoes as a tragic reality that mainstream online media will always compete with social media with regard to the immediacy of the news, which somewhat propels some online media platforms to hastily peddle unverified information to ride on the wave of the traction which these controversial stories can generate. But then, given the potentially damaging effect of publishing unverified stories, there is a critical need to verify the veracity of certain contentious claims before pushing such stories for public consumption.
Only recently, fast-rising Nigerian entertainer, Justin Chukwudi Ugonna, popularly known as Justin Ug was caught up in quite a very ugly social media crossfire after the 23-year-old was accused of a hoax of a rape incident which purportedly took place three years ago. As observed by EkoHotBlog, a great number of media outlets had helped fan the flames of this damning controversy before the singer was finally vindicated after he produced verifiable documentation to prove that he was not in Nigeria at the time of the said rape and could not possibly have been responsible for it.
Justin’s case, to say the least, was a minor miracle which ultimately saved the career of a fast-rising star who was facing an imminent tragedy of a failed career not to mention the severe legal consequences which would have followed. For Dangote, there was the great peril of losing a solid reputation which has no doubt taken an entire lifetime to build, having been held at the highest esteem by all those who have worked under and alongside the billionaire throughout a distinguished business career. What this ultimately necessitates is a pressing need for journalism in a supposedly jet age to stem the tide of the havoc caused by social media which is replete with unscrupulous elements looking to score cheap points by sparking controversies with fictitious claims.
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