Claim: An X user shared an image claiming four siblings were arrested for kidnapping their father in Anambra, Southeast Nigeria.
Verdict: Misleading! The incident surrounding the image happened in 2024 among friends, for faking a kidnap in Lagos State, and not siblings in Anambra State as claimed.
Full Text
As ethnic segregation continues to thrive on social media, ardent supporters of respective ethnic groups are recycling old, unrelated narratives and media to foster hate speech and bigotry.
Given this existing trend, an X user, @Chukwudi_ezeoo, shared an image claiming the individuals were four siblings apprehended for kidnapping and killing their father in the Southeast.
The post shared on Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2025, has a caption that reads, “Three sisters from Anambra state and their brother were arrested for kidnapping and killing their father. Igbo youth are becoming more barbaric.”
As of Saturday, Aug. 30, 2025, it had generated over 83,000 views and accumulated 1,000 likes, 406 reposts, 104 bookmarks, and 60 quotes.
DUBAWA examined the comment section and noticed many comments aligned with the post’s veracity. A few sceptics consulted Grok, but they were unable to verify independently. Meanwhile, some other X users commended the claimant for courageously posting the incident despite sharing an identical cultural background with the culprits.
“If there are Ibos like you, believe me, things will get better for the Ibos,” @Beyond70731 commented
“There is something wrong with that Anambra State from the spiritual realm,” @Otomporo8701 wrote.
“Handiwork of a bad mother. Their mother must have engineered them into doing this,” @ArinzePesky opined.
Similar claims were shared on Facebook, as seen here and here.
Due to the growing ethnic-related misinformation that has crowded the media space, DUBAWA carried out this verification.
Verification
DUBAWA ran an extensive keyword search to confirm the veracity of such information but found no similar report by credible media outlets.
We further subjected the shared image to a Google Reverse Image Search. The result led us to a similar image shared alongside some reports in 2024.
According to a Punch publication on March 23, 2024, the image depicts the arrest of people who staged the abduction of a lady identified as Agnes Ogbeh in Lagos State.
According to the same report, those arrested include Margaret Itodo (25), Esther Anyanwu (24), Anthony Chinakwe (24), and the alleged victim, Agnes.
On Mar. 19, 2024, Agnes, an Akure resident, had reportedly travelled to Lagos and was kidnapped there. The ‘kidnappers’ had sent a video of her and one other person supposedly held captive to Agnes’ family, demanding a ransom of N5 million. However, police detectives found the situation to have been staged as the ‘victim’ and the other suspects aforementioned had connived to create the video to extort Agnes’ family members.
The Nation newspaper also reported a similar abduction incident in March 2024.
Meanwhile, other reports can be seen here, here, and here.
Conclusion
The picture was recirculated from an incident in 2024; it is not as recent as claimed.