Billboard hoax reprises old video clip of alleged bribery

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When a Nigerian online newspaper published a series of videos in October 2018 showing Kano Governor Abdullahi Ganduje handling stacks of cash and alleged that he had received about  $5 million in bribes from contractors, it caused a nationwide scandal. Nearly two years later, he has not faced prosecution, but the footage has reappeared online in a new form. Multiple Facebook posts recently shared a video of a large roadside billboard apparently screening the footage, with claims that this stunt mocking the politician took place in Edo state. But this is false; the video of the billboard comes from an Italian advert for bug spray and was digitally altered to replace the original advertising content with footage of the alleged bribery.  

“Some people put up the video of Ganduje pocketing dollars on a billboard at ring road, Benin city in Edo State,” reads the caption on this Facebook post by Nigerian activist Deji Adeyanju, who also shared the claim on Twitter. (AFP Fact Check recently debunked another post by Adeyanju here ). 

Ring Road is a major bus stop in the heart of Benin, the capital city of Edo state in southern Nigeria.

A screenshot taken on July 16, 2020, showing the misleading Facebook post

More than 77,000 people have viewed the post’s accompanying video since it was published on July 9, 2020.  Earlier versions of the clip were also shared elsewhere on the social network, as well as on YouTube and Twitter.

A screenshot taken on July 16, 2020, showing one of the misleading tweets

Adeyanju’s tweet was quoted by several news sites in Nigeria, including in this article by Legit NG, which is the country’s most visited domestic news site according to Alexa website traffic rankings.

A screenshot taken on July 16, 2020, showing the misleading article

Alleged bribery

The footage of the alleged bribery was first published by Nigerian online newspaper Daily Nigerian in October 2018, although the date of filming appears to be a year earlier. Ganduje of Nigeria’s ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is seen handling what looks like bundles of cash. 

The governor denied he took bribes before a local parliament committee set up to investigate. Daily Nigerian publisher Jafaar Jafaar defended the authenticity of the footage before the same committee, whose probe was stalled by a local court.

Nigeria’s anti-graft agency is yet to honour calls asking it to investigate Ganduje. According to the agency, he enjoys immunity from prosecution as a sitting governor.

However, critics have continued to use the footage to challenge Ganduje’s integrity and the sincerity of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, whose government had vowed to tackle corruption.

Meanwhile, with Ganduje’s recent appointment to oversee his party’s campaign council ahead of a governorship poll in Edo, opposition politicians have reignited discussions around his alleged bribery.

Billboard not in Nigeria

The footage of Ganduje purportedly depicted on the billboard is, indeed, one of the clips published by the Daily Nigerian in 2018. But it has been digitally transposed onto the billboard, which AFP Fact Check traced to a European city.

Using the WeVerify tool, AFP Fact Check ran reverse image searches on keyframes of the billboard video from the posts and found a 2015 tweet that features the same image of the billboard -- but without the footage of Ganduje. In this version, it is inscribed with a Turkish text about 70,000 engineers and veterinarians waiting for assignments at government offices. 

Further searches for the manipulated image on Yandex led us to the source of the picture. It was used in an article published by BRANDinLABS, a Taiwan-based magazine that focuses on branding. In the original image, the billboard features an insecticide spray can. 

An image showing the billboard advert of an insecticide brand (BRANDinLABS)

The article also features a video, published by Milan-based creative agency Publicis Italy, a subsidiary of French advertising company Publicis.

The video shows an advertising stunt from 2013 for the insecticide brand Orphea, in which transparent glue is sprayed on a billboard in Milan, Italy, to trap flies and mosquitoes. 

The physical features in the video between 0’35” and 0’40”, such as the iron fence and pavement and the word “Proxima” in the bottom left corner of the billboard, match those found in the digitally altered clip posted on Facebook. 

Meanwhile, no major Nigerian media has reported on any public display of the footage in Benin. 

The hoax video is the latest in a wave of misinformation circulating online ahead of the Edo governorship election scheduled for September 2020. AFP Fact Check debunked a false claim about the APC party’s candidate here.
 

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