Cash shortage in Nigeria leads to false claims about banks burning down
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on February 15, 2023 at 17:18
- 6 min read
- By Erin FLANAGAN
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"Central Bank of Nigeria, Benin on (fire), it’s happening live today 8/2/2023," reads the caption of a TikTok published on February 8, 2023.
The post, with more than a million views, includes a video showing black smoke billowing from a building.
Text in the clip claims it is a CBN branch in Benin City, the capital of Edo state in southern Nigeria.
A separate post claims that a Zenith Bank branch was filmed burning in Jalingo, the capital of Taraba state in northeastern Nigeria.
"Finally zenith Bank is on fire. The zoological republic is gradually coming to an end, the centre can no longer hold. Before the end of this month, this contraption will be gone. We move (sic)," reads the tweet posted on February 8, 2023.
The caption implies the burning bank is a sign that Nigeria, referred to as the “zoological republic,” will no longer be a unified country by the end of February.
Nigerians have been dealing with a currency crisis as the government pushes to replace old bills with newly designed notes ahead of the presidential ballot on February 25, 2023.
With limited cash in circulation, many Nigerians are waiting hours to access their money. Some banks have even closed branches over security concerns and fears for staff safety.
An authentic video recently showed Zenith bank staff fleeing over a fence as customers stormed the building in protest.
The Nigerian Supreme Court temporarily suspended the deadline for the use of old banknotes to alleviate some of the frustration.
But the claims that these posts show recent fires at banks in eastern and southern Nigeria are false.
Supermarket fire in Abuja
AFP Fact Check used several clues from the TikTok video claiming to show the CBN branch on fire to determine the actual location of the blaze.
The first clue is a billboard on the side of the road which can be seen 11 seconds into the clip. It reads: "Abuja Enterprise Agency."
Using a keyword search for "Abuja fire", AFP Fact Check found a news article about a fire at an Abuja retailer called Next Cash and Carry in 2021, which featured a photo of a similar building.
Then we searched for "Next Cash and Carry Abuja" on Google Maps, which lists the Abuja store as “temporarily closed”.
Using Google Street View, which allows users to see a location from the street level, AFP Fact Check found the same "Abuja Enterprise Agency" sign in front of the empty lot where Google Maps verified that the Next Cash and Carry was once located.
A second notable element from the TikTok video is a sign on the side of the burning building reading "Next" -- the same name as the building that burned down in Abuja.
A photo published on Google Maps on March 2017 shows the exterior of the same Next Cash and Carry with an identical sign and logo.
Finally, AFP Fact Check searched on Twitter for "Abuja fire next cash and carry" and found that the same video used in the false TikTok was previously tweeted on December 26, 2021.
"We dey live for Next Cash and Carry Supermarket mside Abuja, Nigeria Federal Capital wia fire dey burn (sic)," reads part of the tweet.
Nigerian broadcaster Channels TV reported on the blaze. It also published a video showing the Next retailer on fire, with a journalist saying that "the hopes of saving any parts of this building are very slim".
It appears the building was later demolished. In a Google Street View image taken on June 2022, the supermarket is no longer visible and there is an empty lot in its place.
Bank blaze in Port Harcourt
Using a keyword search for "Zenith bank fire", AFP Fact Check found a news story about a blaze at a Zenith Bank in Port Harcourt, a city in southern Nigeria, in 2021.
By comparing the image in the article to the one in the false tweet, AFP Fact Check detected several similar features.
In both photos, an unfinished building site is visible to the bank’s left.
To its right, there is a sign with an orange logo and a lime green bottom.
The article mentioned that the incident took place at the Rumuokoro branch.
Using Google Maps, AFP Fact Check searched "Zenith Bank Rumuokoro". A street view taken in February 2020 confirms that the building shown in the Twitter post is the Zenith Bank in Port Harcourt, not the branch in Jalingo.
The photo features the same construction site and logo.
Separatist push
The account behind the false tweet has a history of publishing content sympathetic to a separatist group known as the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and its leader, Nnamdi Kanu.
IPOB is pushing for the independence of Nigeria’s southeast.
Calls for a separate state of Biafra remain a hot-button topic in Nigeria more than half a century after secessionist leader Chukwuemeka Ojukwu declared the independence of the country’s southeast in 1967. This was followed by a brutal 30-month civil war.
Though the breakaway state has since rejoined the rest of the country, members of IPOB and those sympathetic to its cause still refer to themselves as Biafrans.
The organisation has a history of spreading disinformation and has been the subject of various debunks by AFP Fact Check.
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