A former Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has blamed sensational and misleading media headlines for the controversies that trailed the #EndSARS protests.

The former minister who made the remarks on Thursday in Abuja said the influence of headlines has grown significantly in the era of digital and social media, as many Nigerians now form opinions based solely on headlines without reading the full reports.

“The average Nigerian today doesn’t want to read any document; he runs away with the headlines, but the headlines don’t always tell the story,” he stated. Mohammed cited the media coverage of the #EndSARS protests, arguing that headlines published after the protest was dispersed by soldiers contributed to the controversy that followed the event.

“And it was these same headlines that made the EndSARS protest so controversial,” he stated just as he recalled that many news outlets reported various numbers of deaths at Lekki Tollgate. “Some said 100, some said 60, some said 40,” he recalled, while condemning what he described as a culture of sharing unverified information, particularly on social media platforms.

“Unfortunately, in Nigeria today, you send a story, nobody bothers to verify, they share,” Mohammed regretted. The former Minister also renewed the call for the regulation of the social media to prevent harm to individuals and society. “We are not saying you ban it. No, regulate it, register with the government, and let there be a code of conduct,” he further advised.