Post falsely claims video shows police in Nigeria beating up hungry people

Published on January 10, 2025 at 14:51
3 min read
By Samad UTHMAN, AFP Nigeria, AFP Ivory Coast

In December 2024, over 60 people were killed in stampedes in three different incidents in Nigeria involving end-of-year charity events where food was distributed. Following these tragedies, an Instagram account posted a video claiming it showed “hungry” Nigerians being whipped by police for taking pastries out of the back of a police truck. However, the video was not taken in Nigeria. It was filmed in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.

“Hungry in d land of Nigeria (sic),” reads the caption of an Instagram post published on December 30, 2024.

Screenshot of the false post, taken on January 9, 2024

The post has been liked more than 116,000 times and includes a 16-second video of a man in uniform lashing out at people around him with his belt after they grab food items from the back of a police truck.

Stampedes in Nigeria

Faced with skyrocketing food prices and a 28-year high inflation rate of 34.6 percent, many Nigerians have been forced to queue for charity handouts for hours just to get enough to eat, leading to several deadly stampedes in December 2024 in which a total of 67 people died.

On December 18, 2024, people were in line from 5 am for a food and cash handout at a school in the southwestern city of Ibadan. An overwhelming turnout led to a stampede that killed 35 children and seriously injured six others (archived here).

Then, on December 21, 2024, 22 people were killed in a stampede as people queued outside a centre distributing rice in the southern town of Okija, police said (archived here).

On the same day, another stampede outside a church handing out food in the capital Abuja killed at least 10 people (archived here).

AFP Fact Check previously debunked another claim related to the December 2024 stampedes in Nigeria.

However, the video shared on Instagram does not show a scene in Nigeria.

Video from Ivory Coast

The first clue is the language spoken in the video.

Speaking in French, the voice in the video is heard saying, “Population d’Adjamé, population d’Adjamé, population d’Adjamé, population d’Adjamé…le match est chaud”. Translated, this means: “People of Adjamé, people of Adjamé, people of Adjamé, people of Adjamé... the match is intense”.

Adjamé is a district of Abidjan, the economic capital of Ivory Coast.

The inscription on the police truck is also French. “Don de la Mairie d’Adjamé,” it reads, which means “gift from the municipality of Adjamé.”

Screenshot showing the French text on the police truck, taken January 7, 2024

Although AFP Fact Check could not track down the original version of the video in the claim, an Ivorian team member confirmed the footage showed a typical Abidjan street market. He pointed to the overturned stalls in the first seconds of the footage, as well as the big white bundles containing merchandise seen halfway through, and noted that the uniforms matched those of local police.

There are two types of police officers in the video: the officer beating the people is wearing a sky-blue shirt and dark-blue pants while others are in black outfits.

Screenshot showing the police officers, taken January 7, 2024

The former is Ivory Coast’s regular police uniform, as can be seen on the national police’s official Facebook page, while the latter is worn by a police unit locally called “CRS — Compagnies républicaines de sécurité” (Republican security companies), as seen for example in local TV reports (archived here and here).

AFP Fact Check contacted police authorities to find out more about this incident. We will update this story if we receive a reply.

Additional reporting by SUY Kahofi

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