PRNigeria Ladies Condemn Media Stereotypes, Say Nigerian Women are not Unfaithful

PRNigeria Ladies, an advocacy group of Image Merchants Promotion Limited (IMPR) – publishers of PRNigeria, Economic Confidential and other titles – have condemned what they described as the “dangerous tendency of the media in Nigeria to sensationalise and escalate any story or incident that is targeted at generalising negativity and destroying the hard-earned reputation of the womenfolk in the country.”

The group in a press conference held at the PRNigeria Centre in Abuja on Monday, described as false and embarrassing a story which was published in September by some national newspapers claiming that Nigerian women are the most unfaithful in the world.

The Team Lead of the female advocacy group, Rahma Oladosu, told journalists that PRNigeria fact-check team investigated the claim in the story and found them to be false and misleading as the Nigerian newspapers who reported the story saw it on a foreign site from which the story had long been deleted.

“A seemingly misogynistic section of the Nigerian press has been portraying our women as morally bankrupt, unintelligent and having nothing to offer apart from their makeups and bodies. Our women are being portrayed as people who are meant to have fewer opinions on issues that surround them and also as the inferior ones who are supposed to depend on others for validation.

“Gentlemen of the press, this tendency on the part of our media gatekeepers to excitedly jump at any negative claim about a Nigerian woman, escalate it so that fellow misogynists can use it to taunt, torment and abuse the entire gender, is worrisome. It was this sort of mindset that recently led many Nigerian newspapers to publish and celebrate a false story which claimed that Nigerian women were the most unfaithful in the world,” Miss Oladosu said.

PRNigeria reports that sometimes in September, a video went viral in WhatsApp groups and it was titled: “Nigerian women are the most unfaithful in the world – Durex.” This video claimed, with magisterial authority, that Nigerian women are the most promiscuous and unfaithful in the world.

A quick search on Google by PRNigeria fact-checkers also revealed that many reputable newspapers and blogs in Nigeria, at different times, feasted on the story with similar headlines.

“As an investigative platform that is interested in unearthing the truth, we were curious on how Nigerian women could be rated the most unfaithful in the world. We unleashed our award-winning fact-check team on the story and what we found was embarrassing.

“The fact-check revealed that a Durex survey was misrepresented and mischievously misinterpreted for sensationalism on Nigerian women by mainstream and online media in this country.

“In fact, we found out that there was no infidelity survey at all that put Nigerian women on top of the table. The survey conducted by Durex was on a completely different topic as there was no where in the original report where Nigerian women were linked with infidelity. The original site that published the falsehood many years ago had since taken it down but Nigerian newspapers which copied the story years later are yet to remove the story from their sites.

“The false report was first published in 2012 and it was rather shocking to see it trending in 2023 with another set of our media houses feasting on it afresh. This is a gross indictment on our professionalism, credibility, thoroughness and attention to details,” she revealed.

She told journalists that she and her colleagues had written a lot of articles, features and also conducted vox pops to condemn the story and demand that all the newspaper sites that reported it should take it down.

“Introspection on the report would have shown that the story was an old falsehood that should have been ignored. It is improper to tag the womenfolk in a web of infidelity in a country where majority of the women are fighting tooth and nail, making sacrifices in the face of adversity to take care of their husbands and children.

“Distinguished colleagues, in the light of the above revelations, PRNigeria hereby demands that the report be taken down by the media houses that have published them recently and the ones who did so years ago. We also demand that our media houses should improve their gatekeeping process to detect false reports and stereotypes. Rather than joining the mob to undeservedly shame women, Nigerian media should spotlight the greatness of the women and celebrate the professionals and business leaders who are making the country proud both locally and internationally.

“The gender stereotypes are just too much. You don’t have to be a woman; you only need to be a human being to know this is wrong and it has to stop!” she lamented.

She argued that: “Time has come for media stakeholders to start seeing the positivity in the Nigerian woman – the brilliancy, the vision, patriotism, the sense of sacrifice, the doggedness, the can-do spirit and the never-say-die attitude.”

Miss Oladosu contended that the promiscuous or unfaithful woman is not the symbol of the Nigerian woman, saying Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Hajiya Amina Mohammed, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Tobi Amusan represent the real Nigerian woman.

“We, the PRNigeria Ladies who went to Lusaka, Zambia, to win two SABRE African Public Relations Awards for 2023 for our advocacy work on national unity and good governance, are the symbols of the Nigerian woman!

“Negativity does not define us. Our genius, passion and all-conquering spirit do,” she concluded.

Speaking on the same vein, Mrs Mudasiru Josie of Women Affairs Secretariat of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) commended PRNigeria for providing factual information to the public through a series of fact-checkings.

She equally enjoined the PR ladies to collaborate with the government through relevant MDA in fighting injustices being perpetrated against women.

She added that, media houses who participated in peddling the mischievous information should be urged to take them down from their sites and tender unreserved apology to the Nigerian women.

Hajia Fatima Abaji of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) commended the young ladies on the campaign against disinformation and stereotyping against women

“As PR professionals this is a kind of campaign that we should support to ensure that not only Nigerian women but the country must be protected and promoted by its patriotic citizens in the most positive light.”

The campaign is supported by the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) under the Collaborative Media Engagement for Development Inclusivity and Accountability project (CMEDIA) funded by the MacArthur Foundation