Video does not show attack on Nigerian presidential candidate, but state governor in 2020

This article is more than one year old.
Published on July 19, 2022 at 15:24
2 min read
By Segun OLAKOYENIKAN, AFP Nigeria

About a week before a governorship election was held in Nigeria’s southwest Osun state, a Facebook account published footage of a group of people throwing stones at a convoy of SUVs and buses. It claimed the clip showed a mob attacking Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the ruling party’s candidate for president in next year’s general polls. However, the claim is false: the footage actually shows Gboyega Oyetola, Osun’s incumbent governor, under attack, and not Tinubu. It was taken in the state capital Osogbo during the 2020 protests against police brutality.

“Tinubu was given a run for his life at Osun State. BAT [Bola Ahmed Tinubu] disciples how far,” reads the Facebook post published on July 11, 2022. More than 850,000 people have seen the accompanying clip.

Screenshot taken on July 18, 2022, showing the false Facebook post

Osun is one of eight Nigerian states where governorship elections are not held at the same time as the rest of the country because of legal challenges to previous results.

A few days ahead of the state poll held on July 16, 2022, political parties including the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) gathered supporters in the capital Osogbo for their final rallies.

Incumbent governor Gboyega Oyetola lost the battle to retain his seat for another term of four years to main opposition’s Ademola Adeleke.

But there is no record of attacks against any politician before, during or after the vote.

Old video

AFP Fact Check conducted reverse image searches on keyframes of the clip and found an earlier version on the YouTube page of Nigerian broadcaster Channels Television, uploaded on October 17, 2020.

The broadcaster’s report explains that the footage shows Oyetola being attacked by “hoodlums” who had infiltrated an #EndSARS protest held on the same day at the popular Olaiya Junction in Osogbo.

Screenshot taken on July 18, 2022, showing the footage on Channels TV’s YouTube page

Tinubu, an ex-governor of Nigeria’s southern Lagos state, will face former vice-president Atiku Abubakar of the main opposition party and other candidates in elections next year to determine President Muhammadu Buhari’s successor.

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