No, this photograph does not show killings on Nigeria’s Port Harcourt-Bayelsa road
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on July 17, 2019 at 18:10
- Updated on July 19, 2019 at 09:14
- 2 min read
- By AFP Nigeria, Mayowa TIJANI
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The post by @AtikuAbubakaFanPage, which we’ve archived here, claims to show the current situation on the Port-Harcourt Bayelsa road.
“This picture was sent to me now.This is the current situation in Bayelsa -portharcourt road.This Criminals will just come out from the forest stop vehicle and kill and go,” reads part of the caption of the post, published on July 16, 2019.
AFP ran a previous fact check about the same image in May after a Facebook post seen by tens of thousands of people claimed it showed killings by Fulani herdsmen of the Abuja-Jos road in central Nigeria.
In fact, the image originally appeared online on October 20, 2018 in a tweet saying that it was taken after an attack on the convoy of a traditional ruler in Kaduna State, northwest Nigeria. We archived the tweet here.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) and other credible local media reported at the time that the monarch, Galadima Maiwada, the Agom Adara of Adara Chiefdom in Kaduna State, was abducted alongside his wife and driver in the village of Maikyali along the Kaduna-Kachia road.
Nigerian news website CKN News shared what it said were other images from the scene of the same attack.
Four of the Agom Adara’s aides were killed during the abduction. The monarch’s wife and driver were later released, but the Agom Adara himself was killed several days later and his body dumped by the roadside. His death was announced by the Kaduna state government on October 26, 2018.
While the latest post takes the picture out of context, insecurity in Nigeria has been on the rise -- and so has misinformation around the issue. Last week Olufunke Olakunrin, the daughter of Reuben Fasoranti, the leader of the Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, was killed on the Ore expressway. That road was also mentioned in the caption of this latest misleading post.
On Monday, former president Olusegun Obasanjo wrote a letter to President Muhammadu Buhari warning that the security situation in the country was at a “tipping point”.
EDIT: This post was updated on July 19, 2019 to pixelate the cover image and screenshot.
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