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Claim: An X user via video claims that Nigerian army personnel have invaded and attacked unarmed citizens in Southeast Nigeria.
Verdict: Misleading! The video clip is not recent, as it has been online since 2021. Also, reports on the incident from 2021 revealed the Nigerian Army denied the person opening fire on community members in Enugu State.
Full Text
The age-long fight for an indigenous country in the Southeast has destabilised the tranquillity once enjoyed in the region. Since the continuous agitation for an independent state by Nnamdi Kalu in 2014, the Southeast has been thrown into a state of chaos, resulting in a myriad of violent attacks, kidnappings, and social unrest.
Although these attacks are usually reported to have been carried out by some unknown gunmen, the members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) group have linked these attacks to the Nigerian military.
Against this backdrop, an X user @Uchechukwubiaf4 shared a video claiming that Nigerian soldiers have attacked a state in the Southeast. The 21-second video uploaded on Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025, captures two soldiers firing sporadically and aggressively at residential buildings.
The user captioned the video, “Nigeria army is shooting directly into the homes of unarmed and defenceless people of Biafra origin in Eastern Nigeria. Fulani terrorists attack and kill locals, and when they try to defend themselves, the Nigerian army intervenes to protect the terrorists.”
The gunfire-riddled video has amassed about 369,000 views, 1,497 likes, 1,089 reposts, 301 bookmarks, and has been quoted 75 times.
Moreover, the post has attracted comments from users who countered its recency, while others tagged the individuals as terrorists, not soldiers.
“Some of you are just here to mislead the people(.) This video is (an old) story, so you are reposting it to be seen as a new video.” @BRI19721972 disputed.
Another user, @Aduroja_Deji asserted, “This old video, I (saw) a couple of years ago, alarmists park well.”
“These are not real soldiers of the Nigeria Army. These are terrorists. Real soldiers will not do this. Terrorists will.” @ceVizor wrote.
The video’s virality and the possibility of escalating tension and security concerns in the Southeast led DUBAWA to fact-check it.
Verification
DUBAWA retrieved some of the video clip’s keyframes and analysed them using Google Lens. The results led us to similar videos shared on Facebook, as seen here, here, and here, and X, as seen here and here, in November 2021.
Further review of the video shared in 2021 shows that the event was attributed to an attack in the Southeast, and the claimant now shares a similar narrative.
DUBAWA also found reports published by media outlets in 2021. A Punch report on Nov. 2, 2021, reported the invasion of the Nigerian army in Imama village, Mgbowo, in the Awgu Local Government Area of Enugu State. The report explains that the attack was done in search of a suspected Eastern Security Network (ESN) leader.
On the same day, The Sun reported a similar story stating that the 82 Division of the Nigerian Army in Enugu denied that the individual in the video was Nigerian army personnel and dismissed it as an attempt to incite the public against the Nigerian Army.
Furthermore, we searched for a recent report that corroborated the claimant’s post but found no supporting evidence.
Conclusion
The video clip shared with the claim that the Nigerian army was shooting indiscriminately in an area in the Southeast is not recent as claimed by the X user. The video dates back to November 2021.
