By Pascal Oparada
The story of the U.S. President, Donald Trump, endorsing Atiku Abubakar as Nigeria’s next president in the February election is not true, a CrossCheck Nigeria fact-check has revealed.
CrossCheck Nigeria is a collaborative network of over 15 major newsrooms in Nigeria, including TheNiche, The Guardian, The Punch, AFP and others that fight misinformation and disinformation online.
A Facebook page named “Atiku Abubakar 2019” has posted a picture of President Donald Trump of the U.S. allegedly endorsing PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, for the 2019 general elections.
It shows that the Facebook page has more than 30,900 followers and has garnered about 30,771 likes.
The post allegedly quoted Trump as saying, “Support AtikuObi Presidency to reduce unemployment, poverty and lifelessness of the economy as my government has done in America. I think America first. Atiku thinks Nigeria first.”
Using the Google reversed image search, CrossCheck Nigeria found the picture to be fabricated.
The original picture, which, was fabricated was first used on September 3, 2015, when Donald Trump, then-Republican presidential candidate for the U.S. presidential elections, pledged himself to the Republican Party.
It is evident that the picture is fabricated and has been used on various websites.
The post has since generated 32 shares and 16 comments.