Alleged video of Bukola Saraki under mob attack in UK is misleading

Claim: A Facebook user claims that Bukola Saraki was beaten up by a mob of protesters in the streets of the United Kingdom.

The claim that a mob of protesters beat Bukola Saraki in the streets of the United Kingdom is misleading. The video has existed since 2019 and has been used to paint different narratives. This claim is misleading.

 Full Text

Olubukola Abubakar Saraki, popularly known as Bukola Saraki, is a Nigerian politician who served as the 13th President of the Nigerian Senate from 2015 to 2019. Prior to his election to the senate in 2011, he served as two-term governor of Kwara State.

In his service years, Saraki was and still remains a point of controversy, mostly around corruption allegations which he has vehemently contested.

Recently, a footage making rounds on Facebook has a claim that the politician was attacked and beaten by a mob of protesters in the streets of the United Kingdom.

The video was shared by a Facebook user, Joy Ese Joshua, accompanied with the caption that labels the man in the footage as Saraki.

“Bukola Saraki received the beating of his life in the hands of the Nigerian diaspora on the streets of: UK. nemesis has caught up with the shameless rogue.”

Viewed almost 70 thousand times by users, it attracted massive reactions and was re-shared over 30 thousand times by users on Facebook.  

Having no doubts whatsoever about the claim, some users who commented said the ex-lawmaker deserved the beating, some added that the man is truly Saraki when he travelled with Atiku to London back in 2019:

“It was him but not of recent, 2019 when he went with Atiku,” Michael Ajibola commented.

Some users felt otherwise, tagging the post as outright “fake news”:

“This is fake news,” Temitope Akinwumi wrote.

Politicians have always been a topic of controversy, especially when elections are underway.

Verification

When DUBAWA ran an analysis of the acclaimed video on InVid video verifier, results show that the footage has been featured on different occasions with different narratives. On YouTube and Facebook, the video was shared with the claim that Tinubu’s son was attacked and beaten up in London. This was in October 2020, during the #EndSars protest in Nigeria, where major politicians such as Tinubu were criticised for the years of bad leadership and police brutality in Nigeria.

The same footage also appeared on this Facebook page with multiple views and reactions. Shared in 2019, the narrative here also claims the man in the video is the Governor of Kinshasa who went shopping in Paris but was attacked by the Congolese people.

“Kinshasa Governor went shopping in Paris. His Congolese people resident there waited outside for him to finish and pounced on him,” the caption reads.

In 2019, around the time the video first emerged, members of the Congolese community held a protest when President Félix Tshisekedi visited Paris.

Bukola Saraki is a prominent person in Nigeria. Such an event should have attracted wide media attention. However,  this was not captured on any mainstream media nor even on blog sites. This is usually a major red flag for misleading information. 

Conclusion 

The alleged video has been in existence since 2019 and has been used to paint different narratives at different times with no reference to any actual source.  As such, this claim is misleading.