In the early days of March 2022, a breaking news headline emerged, claiming that the Federal Government of Nigeria had resolved to divert the allowances of graduates enrolled in the one-year mandatory programme of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), for the payment of arrears and sundry allowances to the striking members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
The viral claim, which made the rounds on social media channels including Twitter and WhatsApp, was widely believed by Nigerians who came across it – some of whom attributed the claim to the delay in payments of NYSC allowances.
However, a fact-check by Dubawa revealed that the claim was false as there were no plans by the Federal Government to fund ASUU with the NYSC allowance. Using Sweary, an online tool which allows users to generate all kinds of news headlines and captions of their choice, the “breaking news” headline was also found to be fabricated.
Following the fact-check, the claimant, Premier of UNILORIN💯 (who shared the misleading claim), acknowledged his error and promptly deleted the claim from his Twitter page.
“Deleted, thank you🙌,” he tweeted,
Recently, the fight against misinformation by exposing inaccurate claims has received positive feedback, including the withdrawal of false claims by claimants following fact-checks by Dubawa.