Claim: Old photos were recently reshared online depicting massive turnout for the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate Bola Tinubu’s campaign in Katsina.
Verdict: Misleading. The pictures shared are from the 2019 elections when President Muhammadu Buhari was contesting for a second term.
Full Text
On February 25, Nigerians will head to the polls to elect their next president. The position of the number one Nigerian citizen will be keenly contested by 18 candidates registered with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Ahead of the much-awaited elections, political parties and their supporters are intensifying efforts to garner support for their candidates.
It has become a competition among political parties and their supporters over whose rally attracted more crowds, as such is often equated to massive acceptance by members of the public.
While this does not necessarily translate to getting more votes in the election, party supporters have, over time, taken to Twitter and other social media platforms to share pictures of political rallies in different states, praising the turnout for their preferred candidates and mocking the opponents who do not get such an audience.
In their seeming desperation to prove a point, some supporters have resorted to sharing old photos or videos to depict turnout in 2023 rallies, thereby misleading members of the public.
An instance of this is the All Progressives Congress (APC) rally in Katsina state on February 6, 2023.
Dogo Shettima, a special assistant to Babagana Zulum, the governor of Borno State, recently shared pictures from the Katsina rally on his Twitter handle.
He commented that Mr Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the APC, got a massive turnout in Katsina because of the support from Mr Buhari, an indigene of the state.
“Wetin my eyes see for Katsina my mouth no fit talk am……… @officialABAT is lucky to Have Allah and @MBuhari on his side. Katsina state has proven @MBuhari is theirs (sic),” he wrote as a caption to support pictures showing President Buhari in a vehicle and through with many supporters.
The pictures were also shared by other supporters of the APC, as seen here, here and here.
However, some of the pictures are not recent, according to DUBAWA’s findings.
Verification
DUBAWA subjected the images to reverse image search tools to check the origin of the image and the first time it was shared.
Results from Google reverse image search showed that some of the images had been captured in 2019 during Mr Buhari’s campaign in Katsina in February 2019.
Mr Shettima appeared to have deliberately mixed the pictures with others from the 2023 rally in Katsina to confuse unsuspecting members of the public.
The governor’s aide did not differentiate the pictures to show some were old while others were recent – which would have given proper context to his post.
The photos were contained in a report by TheCable newspaper featuring the president campaigning for a second term for himself and Aminu Masari as governor of the state.
Conclusion
Part of the photos shared from the Katsina rally for Mr Tinubu, presidential candidate of the APC, was captured in 2019 during Mr Buhari’s rally in the state.
