By Pascal Oparada
America-based Nigerian columnist, Farooq Kperogi had tweeted a photo on December 26 of campaign vehicles allegedly belonging to President Muhammadu Buhari being chased away by Kano residents.
Kperogi asked for verification of the incident by residents of Kano and tagged CrossCheck Nigeria to also investigate.
CrossCheck Nigeria is a collaborative network of major newsrooms in Nigeria, comprising TheNiche, The Guardian, AFP, TheCable, International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR), and others, set up to fight misinformation and fake news online.
His tweet shows a collage of images of the vehicles and security operatives being pelted by supposedly Kano residents.
On December 25th, 2018, an influential Facebook user posted identical images and text to that featured in Kperogi’s tweet. That post has gained over 5000 shares so far and the same claim has since appeared on a number of other websites.
Our investigation demonstrates that these claims are false. Using the reverse image search tool TinEye, we found that the earliest version of one of the photos is actually from The Globe and The Mail website and was taken in Kampala, Uganda. The photograph depicts a supporter of Uganda’s opposition leader preparing to throw a stone at police during election unrest in February 2016.
The same collage of images was shared widely on Facebook back in March 2018, and can also be found on Nigerian website, Nairaland, posted as far back as December 2017.