KAMPALA – When celebrated Ugandan entertainer Anne Kansiime last month woke up from a siesta to find more than 150 missed calls on her phone, she immediately knew something was amiss. The comedienne, actress and TV host would soon find out that during her brief shuteye, news had spread that she had drowned together with her boyfriend in Canada.
“I am alive, I am well, I am in love, I am so happy. And for all the ninjas that love celebrating my life, you knew where I was because you follow me,” a characteristically beaming Kansiime dismissed the claims in a short selfie video.
In the five-minute footage posted on her YouTube page, the self-styled ‘Queen Ninja’ was also keen to offer a dollop of advice to her social media followers in the hope that they do not fall into the jaws of such misleading hoaxes.
The Kansiime false death story is one of thousands – or even millions – other similar hoaxes that have slalomed their way into the public space all over the world. Fake news, it is. And according to veteran journalist Barbara Among, we must call a spade a spade. No sugar-coating.
“We may want to sanitize the word (‘fake’), but it is what it is: fake,” she said Thursday in Kampala during a vibrant discussion on practising journalism in times of disinformation.
“Fake news always relates to what is happening in society,” she weighed in further, underlining that this wave of and appetite for disinformation peaks towards election time, with especially politicians taking advantage of it to “influence our election narrative”.
Citizens’ Coalition for Electoral Democracy in Uganda (CCEDU) co-ordinator Crispin Kaheru shared the same sentiments.
“The political heat is already on ahead of the 2021 general elections, and along with that comes the intensity of fake news. Fake news will pick up in the coming months,” he told media practitioners and other key stakeholders during the dialogue organized by Media Focus on Africa, a non-profit organisation.
Ugandans will go to the polls in under two years from today to elect their new set of leaders. The Electoral Commission, led by Justice Simon Byabakama Mugenyi, has since launched the strategic plan and roadmap to the polls.
Meanwhile, the Commission has warned political actors against engaging in early campaigning before the nomination exercise is officially announced.
frank sesanga kambenkwine 