Decades-old hoax resurfaces following Nigerian president’s visit to Riyadh

Published on November 20, 2023 at 11:07
3 min read
By Erin FLANAGAN, AFP Africa

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu recently attended a conference in Saudi Arabia to attract foreign investment into Africa’s most populous country. Following Tinubu’s trip to Riyadh, the self-proclaimed leader of a Nigerian separatist movement posted a claim that the Taliban had executed 229 Christian missionaries and included an image of what appeared to show a beheading. But the claim about 229 Christians being killed by the Taliban is an old hoax that AFP Fact Check has already debunked. The post further alleged that Tinubu met with the Taliban during the Riyadh summit, but the hardline Islamist group was not in attendance.

"Viewers discretion. Afghanistan Taliban executed 229th Christian missionaries yesterday afternoon. These are the same people having meeting with Nigeria during their Islamic summit (sic)," reads the caption of a post on X (formerly Twitter), published on November 13, 2023.

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A screenshot of the false post, taken on November 15, 2023

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The post, shared more than 2,200 times, is accompanied by a graphic photo of an execution, which has been partially obscured with dark blue scribbles.

It was published by Simon Ekpa, a self-declared leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), a separatist group pushing for independence in Nigeria’s southeast.

Ekpa has a track record of spreading misinformation and has been previously debunked by AFP Fact Check.

While the Taliban does have a history of persecuting Christians, the claim that the hardline Islamist group executed 229 Christian missionaries is false (archived here and here).

Old hoax

AFP Fact Check debunked the same claim in 2021 when it began circulating online after the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan in the aftermath of the US military and diplomatic withdrawal (archived here).

Similar claims without the picture (here and here) have been circulating since 2009, according to the US fact-checking website Snopes, which reported the hoax was spreading via emails and text messages (archived here).

Open Doors - a charity that provides aid to persecuted Christians worldwide - told AFP Fact Check in 2021 that the posts were all false.

Also in 2021, a spokesperson for human rights organisation Amnesty International told AFP Fact Check it had not recorded any cases similar to those claimed in the viral posts.

Using a keyword search, AFP Fact Check found no recent credible reports of the purported claims.

While Ekpa's post is false, Open Doors previously told AFP Fact Check the situation is “precarious” for Afghan Christians, and their website explains that it is impossible to live openly as a Christian in Afghanistan.

AFP Fact Check has not been able to verify the origin of the image attached to Ekpa’s post.

Saudi-Africa summit

The post also refers to an “Islamic summit” and claimed the Taliban was in attendance.

Tinubu took part in the Saudi-Africa summit in Riyadh on November 10, 2023, to attract foreign investment into Africa’s largest economy (archived here).

Saudi Arabia was one of three countries to recognise the previous Taliban regime, which toppled following the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 (archived here).

Riyadh has kept its distance from its former ally after the Taliban took back power when the US pulled out of Afghanistan in 2021 (archived here).

AFP journalists who covered the summit confirmed the Taliban did not have a delegation in attendance.

Nigeria is almost equally split between a mostly Muslim north and a predominantly Christian south.

In previous elections, presidential candidates have selected a running mate hailing from the opposite geographic zone and religion.

However, Tinubu selected a fellow Muslim northerner as his running mate, sparking criticism in a country where religion and geography are major fault lines (archived here).

IPOB disinformation

Calls for a separate state of Biafra remain alive 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.

A predominantly Christian group, IPOB has made previous misleading claims about an alleged genocide of Christians in Nigeria (archived here).

The organisation has a history of spreading disinformation and has been the subject of various debunks by AFP Fact Check.