This is an old photo of weapons seized from Boko Haram by the Nigerian military

This article is more than one year old.
Published on June 23, 2020 at 14:54
Updated on June 24, 2020 at 10:09
4 min read
By Segun OLAKOYENIKAN, AFP Nigeria

An image showing men in military uniform standing next to a display of weapons has been shared hundreds of times on Facebook and Twitter. The posts claim it shows arms and ammunition taken from a member of parliament in Zamfara state, northwestern Nigeria. The claim is false; the photo was taken in 2013 when Nigerian troops displayed arms they said were seized from Islamist group Boko Haram.

The photo has been circulating on social media in Nigeria in recent days, including in this Facebook post from June 20, 2020. It has been viewed by nearly 500,000 people, according to data provided by the social network.

The post alleges that “security operatives” uncovered arms and ammunition during a raid at the home of a member of Zamfara’s parliament in the capital Gusau and the lawmaker’s constituency Tsafe.

The unnamed politician, described as a member of Nigeria’s main opposition party, the People's Democratic Party (PDP), was described as undergoing interrogation for sponsoring attacks and kidnappings in northwestern Nigeria.

A screenshot taken on June 22, 2020, showing the misleading Facebook post

“Some of the fire arms recovered and unearthed @ the Gusau ánd Tsafe residents of the nabbed ZAMFARA state house of assembly member , undergoing interrogation by the security operatives for sponsoring banditry , kidnapping in Zamfara ,Katsina , Sokoto And Kaduna, and recent Katsina protest (sic),” the post reads. “The member represents PDP's party in the state.”

Zamfara, Katsina, Sokoto, and Kaduna state, all in the northwestern region of Nigeria, have been wracked by years of violence involving clashes between rival communities over land, attacks by heavily-armed criminal gangs and reprisal killings by vigilante groups. This violence, which has claimed 8,000 lives and displaced 200,000 since 2011, has added to Nigeria’s security challenges amid a decade-long attack of Islamist group Boko Haram in the northeast and farmer-herder clashes in central Nigeria.

In Zamfara state, security threats have combined with political tensions that came after Nigeria’s supreme court sacked all elected political office holders under the country’s ruling All Progressive Congress in the 2019 general poll, paving the way for candidates of the main opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party.

The image was also shared on Twitter and Facebook alongside a similar claim.

A screenshot taken on June 22, 2020, showing the misleading tweet

A Google reverse image search traced the image to a Voice of America story published in June 2013, which features the photo with a watermark for Associated Press (AP) news agency in the bottom right-hand corner. According to the agency, the photo shows arms and ammunition that “military commanders say was seized from Boko Haram radicals” in Nigeria’s troubled Borno state on June 5, 2013.

A screenshot taken on June 22, 2020, showing the viral image on AP website

AFP photographer Quentin Leboucher shot a similar image and filmed a short documentary of the scene on the same day.

The police have refuted the claim. “The story in its entirety is false,” Police Public Relations Officer in Zamfara, Mohammed Shehu, said in a statement released on June 22, 2020.

Local journalists have also dismissed the rumours.

"The story is false in its entirety. It is a concoction as no politician or any other person was arrested in Zamfara in recent times over allegations of amassing weapons or association with bandits,” Shehu Umar, a journalist covering Zamfara state for the Nigerian daily newspaper Daily Trust, told AFP Fact Check.

"I and my media colleagues have seen stories circulating on social media in recent days. It has no basis whatsoever."

Meanwhile, using keyword searches from the post, AFP Fact Check traced the details about a raid on a Zamfara lawmaker to a story published by website Nigerian Bulletin more than six years ago, on June 4, 2014. It credits Nigerian daily newspaper The Guardian as the source of the information.

A screenshot taken on June 22, 2020, showing the story on the Nigerian Bulletin website

While the Guardian story Nigerian Bulletin's report links to has since gone offline, AFP Fact Check found the article on page 70 of the June 4, 2014 edition of the newspaper.

The Guardian did not disclose the source of the story and neither version of the story gave the politician's name.

Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.

E-mail