At the three-day 2025 Ake Arts and Book Festival, the 13th edition of the festival, theme ‘Reclaiming Truth’, held at the BON Hotel, Ikeja GRA in Lagos, one panel stood out for its clarity, courage, and refusal to tiptoe around the world’s seismic shifts in information and power.
Titled ‘Whose Truth Is It Anyway?’, the panel, which was moderated by writer and director in Open Society Foundation Ideas Workshop, Aisha Osori, featured writer and journalist Sonia Faleiro; writer Dipo Faloyin; and journalist and executive director of Amnesty International Nigeria, Isa Sanusi.
What emerged from the panel session was not just a conversation, but also a sharp diagnosis of the global crisis of truth and a call for personal accountability in an age where facts struggle to breathe.
Osori opened the session with a question that lingered in the air long after she asked it: “How do we find truth in a world where algorithms push us deeper into ourselves?”
It set the tone for a discussion that probed not only what we believe, but why we believe it, and who benefits when we do not know the difference.
Faleiro delivered perhaps the panel’s starkest warning: The world is drifting into a place where the most verifiable realities are becoming ideological battlegrounds. She pointed to Gaza, where the word “genocide”, once a factual descriptor, has become fiercely contested.
“Facts are not something you can argue about,” she said, her voice edged with disbelief. “We now live in a world where facts no longer matter, where we are being led by opinion.”
Her worry was not just about geopolitics but about the moral implications of a society that treats truth as a choose-your-own-adventure.
Faloyin expanded the conversation by highlighting a different battlefield: The algorithm. For him, the threat is not only misinformation itself but the invisible machinery deciding who sees what.
“The algorithm is the new centre of power,” he argued. “And it is deeply tied to political agendas.”
He explored how public figures like Kemi Badenoch are strategically deployed to uphold narratives of “good migrants versus bad migrants”, despite decades of evidence proving immigrants’ critical contributions.
Sanusi grounded the debate in Nigeria’s own fractured information ecosystem. He described how powerful actors manufacture narratives that exploit fear and division, from the recurring falsehood of a “Christian genocide” to manipulated stories about the origins of school abductions.
“Disinformation aims to divide us,” he warned. “When the state commits murder, people are likely to do the same.”
Sanusi traced the collapse of the traditional media landscape to a combination of political pressure and economic sabotage. Newspapers that refuse to “toe the line,” he explained, are often starved of advertising revenue. At the same time, social media has created what he called a “new monster”, a system where sensational lies circulate faster, louder, and more lucratively than truth.
Faloyin added that even mainstream outlets are now competing with influencers, forcing journalism into a race for attention rather than accuracy.
“We are in a world where people question every image and video they see,” he said. “AI and deepfakes have made suspicion our default state.”
When the panel turned to solutions, the advice was practical, grounded, and urgently necessary.
Faleiro urged the audience to diversify their sources. Relying on one outlet, she said, is a guaranteed way to end up with a partial picture. Osori echoed this, insisting that people must resist cultural pressure to have instant opinions.
For issues that matter deeply, the panellists stressed the importance of slowing down, taking the time to verify, cross-check, and interrogate what is presented as fact.
Sanusi offered a lesson from The Economist, which famously omits bylines so readers must focus on the content rather than the identity of the writer.
“Critical thinking starts with separating the message from the messenger,” he noted.
Panellists also encouraged supporting reliable local journalists, whose community-rooted reporting is essential to countering national and global misinformation.
What emerged from the discussion was a reaffirmation of personal responsibility in the information age. The panellists agreed that fighting back against misinformation requires strength of character, intellectual humility, and an unwavering commitment to evidence, even when the truth is inconvenient.
“Use your gifts, your writing, your art, your conversations. Tell your own stories. Be part of the pushback,” the panel charged the audience.
The message was clear: Reclaiming truth is not a project for journalists alone. It belongs to everyone who reads, speaks, listens, questions, or refuses to be manipulated.
Amid a global storm of distortion, this panel stood as a necessary lighthouse, reminding us that truth still exists, still matters, and still needs defenders.
