Post misleadingly claims old video shows May 2024 protest against Nigeria’s president
- Published on May 29, 2024 at 08:57
- 3 min read
- By Tonye BAKARE, AFP Nigeria
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“BREAKING!!! A MAJOR PROTEST ON TINUBU MUST GO HAS STARTED IN D SW REGION! I knew that my people can't bear this for long… (sic),” reads the post shared on May 11, 2024.
Reposted more than 900 times, the post features a video showing people protesting on the streets. Twelve seconds into the footage, someone says “Let’s go” in Yoruba, a predominant language in southwest Nigeria and parts of the north-central region.
The account that made the claim insisted the protest was recent and that it was not reported in the news because “our media outlets have been bought”.
The cost of living in Africa’s largest democracy spiked after Tinubu ended a costly fuel subsidy and eased foreign exchange controls following his inauguration in May 2023 (archived here).
The result has been a tripling of petrol prices and a hike in living costs as the naira, Nigeria’s currency, continues to slide against the US dollar (archived here).
Officials said the reforms were painful but necessary to help revive the economy. In response, protests broke out (archived here).
However, the claim that the video shows a recent anti-Tinubu protest is misleading.
Video from February
AFP Fact Check traced the origin of the video to the TikTok account whose name appears in the clip.
The account, called “mc_bokujaka01”, posted the video on February 19, 2024, without a caption (archived here).
Visual clues in the footage also suggest it was taken in February. For instance, two large banners seen 12 and 21 seconds into the video had “19TH February 2024” written on them.
AFP covered the protest with photos and videos on the same day.
The man seen crouching at the 58-second mark in the video is also seen in a picture taken by an AFP photographer.
The banner seen 11 seconds into the video is also shown in a video filmed by an AFP journalist during the February protest.
According to an AFP journalist who was at the scene of the protest, demonstrators in the southwestern city of Ibadan were furious with Tinubu's leadership and his policies that have piled hardship on them.
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