Being one of the world’s most successful businessmen comes with its own set of unique problems and Aliko Dangote is no stranger to this fact.
It seems every few months, some attention seeking bloggers fabricate false reports about the biggest private employer of labour in Africa and before you know it, Africa’s most popular news website and forum, Linda Ikeji and Nairaland pick it up and disseminate it as gospel truth.
Thankfully for Dangote shareholders, the Chairman of the group continues to maintain an impeccable reputation, no matter how much imaginary mud the fabricators continue to sling.
Not long ago, there was the fabrication that Alhaji Aliko Dangote was dating some actress or beauty queen, the report was later found to be false, after almost every gossip blog in the country had confirmed it to the ordinary man to be true.
Today’s fabrication are photographs purportedly of the hard working industrialist’s home.
Linda Ikeji made the story popular just before one of Nairaland’s moderators moved the story to the forum’s front page. It turns out the photos could have easily have been confirmed to be fake with a simple google search, but in the digital age where website owners are only concerned with traffic rankings resulting in a huge check from Google Adwords, not too many publishers care about the veracity of the information.
For instance, Google offers a search by photos option which allows users to discover the origin of photos as well as other information relating to them. The service is very easy and takes seconds to use. In five minutes, any of the bloggers who started the disinformation trend could have verified the information.
The photos posted by these popular websites were of a mansion in New York, USA, excluding the first photo which is an actual photo of the main annex of fellow billionaire Femi Otedola’s main home in Ikoyi.
Speaking with The Herald, Social Media Manager at Dangote, said, “It’s part of the terrain. The President/Chief Executive of Dangote Group has only just returned from a multi country Africa business visit where he launched some cement plants and also revealed plans to build a cement factory in Zimbabwe. The focus of the group is aggressively grow its footprint across Africa, recreating Africa’s narrative positively. We may not be able to comment on every story before it goes viral but we believe some burden of responsiblity falls on the bloggers or journalists as the case may be to verify information before going to publish.
“Some of these websites are popular sources of information and the more false news they post, the more it hurts their credibility, at least with enlightened persons in society.”
Eze Ojukwu, a lawyer and social media enthusiast, speaking with the Herald said, “It should be recalled that Seun Oloketuyi, a popular Blogger is currently standing trial on a two-count charge bordering on defamatory publication against a bank MD and was just granted bail of N3 million yesterday.
“There have been other notable cases of legal action against online blogs brought by celebrities and other groups of persons. It only takes one precedence for the whole industry to begin to sanitize itself, and every judgment in favour of a claimant will help to protect the reputation of more Nigerians.”