By Ishaya Ibrahim
President Muhammadu Buhari’s special adviser on social media, Lauretta Onochie has been exposed by Cross Check Nigeria for peddling falsehood.
Onochie had circulated a photo on her twitter page alleging that Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar was giving out food in take-away packs and N500 to persons who attended the PDP presidential rally in Sokoto State on December 3.
Cross Check Nigeria reviewed the image and found that it was not taken at the 2018 Sokoto rally of the PDP as alleged by Onochie.
Cross Check Nigeria team of journalists from TheNiche, AFP, The Punch, Guardian, Nation and ICIR who reviewed it, found that the image first appeared online in February 2017 when a Lagos-based Charity foundation released photos from an outreach.
The same image was reused to publicise a Nollywood actor’s orphanage visit, two days later also in February 2017.
“We, therefore, submit that this image does not support the claim that presidential hopeful Atiku, induced voters with cash or gift at his December 3, 2018 Sokoto campaign rally,” Cross Check team said.
Notwithstanding that the image was a misrepresentation of fact, it got a lot of retweet and likes from unsuspecting tweeter users, especially when Onochie added a footnote to it: “KEEP THEM IN POVERTY, THEN GIVE THEM HANDOUTS- ATIKU in Sokoto yesterday.”
This is not the first time Onochie has been found to be circulating fake news. Two years ago, she posted a picture of a road construction she claimed was going on in Nasarawa-Jos road, which turned out to be an advert on the website of a foreign engineering company which she lifted. She refused to apologize for misleading Nigerians.