Photos of flooded Enugu airport circulated online years before renovation

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A collage of four images shared in multiple social media posts purports to show the shoddy state of a Nigerian airport badly hit by flooding after undergoing major repairs recently. However, the photos have been shared in a misleading context. They were circulating online at least since 2014, five years before the start of the airport’s renovation in 2019. 

“The newly renovated airport Enugu after today's rain (sic),” reads the caption on this post by a Facebook user called Diamond Child. It has been shared more than 600 times since it was published on September 1, 2020.

Screenshot taken on September 15, 2020, showing the misleading Facebook post

The post was shared alongside four images, including two showing people alighting from local airline Med-View and walking through a flooded path.

It surfaced online a day after Nigeria reopened the runway of the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu, in the country’s southeastern region. The runway had been closed for more than a year ago “for major repairs and works on the airfield”, according to the airport authority. 

Work on the runway and other parts of the airport started after its closure on August 17, 2019, according to Aviation Minister Hadi Sirika.

While the runway works have since been completed and the facility reopened on August 30, 2020, some other parts of the airport still remain under construction. 

The viral images also appear in other Facebook posts alongside the same claim. We’ve archived some here and here.

But the four photos do not show the current state of the airport, which is seen in the photo below after the recent renovation. 

An image showing some of the ongoing construction works (Photo: Nigeria’s Ministry of Aviation)

In fact, there is no official evidence to show that the airport was flooded since it was reopened. AFP Fact Check did not find any reports in credible news media on the purported flooding. 

Using the Advanced Twitter Search tool, AFP Fact Check found that two of the images were published on Twitter on August 20, 2015. According to a Twitter user called @ONAmaycroft, the photo shows flooding at Enugu airport in an area passengers were expected to walk through after landing.

A search through @ONAmaycroft’s tweets found another image published the following day. “I still can't believe I experienced this crap on Weds at Enugu Int'l Airport,” ONAmaycroft’s tweet reads.  “Int'l Airport my foot!”

With the help of social media monitoring tool CrowdTangle, AFP Fact Check traced the images to an Instagram post published by popular Nigerian journalist Dele Momodu on August 21, 2014.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A post shared by CHIEF DR DELE MOMODU (@delemomoduovation) on

According to Momodu, the photos show the newly built international terminal of the Akanu Ibiam Airport, which is among the five new international terminal projects that were initiated in 2012. AFP Fact Check has contacted Momodu but has not received a response at the time of writing.

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