Post misleadingly claims video shows clash between armed bandits and Nigerian police

“This Country is finished. Look at Bandits pursuing police in broad daylight (sic),” reads a post shared on X, formerly Twitter, on November 19, 2023.

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A screenshot of the misleading claim, taken on December 4, 2023

The post features a video that shows what appears to be a police van backing away from a crowd amid the sounds of sporadic gunshots.

A woman repeatedly says “Inna Lillahi,” a phrase from the Koran meaning “To God, we belong”. It is usually uttered when someone dies or when bad events happen.

“Police don dey run,” another woman says in Nigerian Pidgin, with voices of people speaking Hausa and Arabic also audible in the background.

Hausa is spoken in Kaduna in northwest Nigeria, where the post claims the violent clash occurred.

The area has for several years been wracked by deadly conflict between herders and farmers over grazing and water rights.

The conflict has spiralled into broader criminality, with gangs of so-called bandits carrying out deadly raids on villages to steal livestock (archived here).

In recent years, these gangs have become notorious for mass kidnappings from schools and colleges, maintaining camps hidden in a vast forest straddling Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna and Niger states (archived here).

Although the bandit gangs have clashed with security forces (archived here) in Kaduna, the claim that the video shows such an incident is misleading.

Protest march

Using the InVID-WeVerify video verification tool, AFP Fact Check found that a shorter 30-second clip of the footage was published on X on November 16, 2023, by the official account of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) (archived here).

It features the same images seen from 30-60 seconds in the video we are verifying.

The post explains that the footage shows police who “attacked” IMN members during a march in “solidarity with the oppressed people of #Gaza and #Palestine”.

The spokesperson for the Kaduna police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

However, a local newspaper quoted him as saying that the police officers dispersing the pro-Palestinian marchers were “pelted with stones and other dangerous objects such as catapults” and that “one innocent civilian” was hit and died (archived here).

A spokesman for the IMN told AFP on November 16, 2023, that the dead man was a member of the group and that he was killed by the police (archived here).

A day after the clash, a spokesperson for IMN leader Ibrahim Zakzaky said in a statement published on X that two people were killed by police in the clash (archived here).

IMN vs security forces

Nigeria banned IMN eight years ago after days of fatal clashes between members of the group and security officials in December 2015 left over 300 dead (archived here).

Zakzaky and his wife were arrested and detained after the clashes on charges of murder. They were freed in July 2021 (archived here).

In November 2016, at least 10 people were killed when the Nigerian police opened fire during clashes with members of the group in Kano in northwest Nigeria (archived here).

Then, in September 2019, a spokesman for the group told AFP that policemen fired on its members holding processions for the Ashura Muslim celebration and killed 12 people (archived here).