Claim: Facebook page claims the LGBTQ+ movement of Nigeria has endorsed Atiku Abubakar for the 2023 presidential elections.
Verdict: There is no sufficient evidence to back the narrative that the LGBTQ+ movement in Nigeria has endorsed Mr Atiku ahead of the 2023 elections. The said group and the alleged news source are non-existent, and no public statement backs it up. This claim is misleading.
Full Text
Amidst campaign rallies in the country and how important endorsements and decamping are to the politicians, a Facebook page named “Nigerian News Hausa” published a post alleging that members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBTQ+) community support Atiku to become Nigeria’s president in 2023. The same claim has appeared in numerous articles, such as on a website called the ‘Independent.ng, and all quoted anonymous representatives of the LGBT movement.
In another post by a user named Aliyu Comrade, the same text and pictures were published with a similar claim. Many comments that trailed the post debunked the news in the comments box, while some were wooing at it.
One user, Abubakar Sadiq Umar, even stressed that the people were paid (LGBTQ+) in 2019 to paint Atiku’s name black, but in 2023 that won’t happen, adding that if the news is true, varying media outlets will publish it.
“Abunda kukayi 2019 aka baku kudi kuka batawa atiku suna .. ta lashe APC Zabe.
To 2023 karinyaku tasha karya wlh kowani dan Nigeria mai wayo ne yenzu kowani dan Nigeria mai ilimi ne da tunani… Kuci kudin Bola.. Mukuma ranan zabe Musha Abola mu hargar. Idan Kuma gaskiyane jaridu masu inganchi zasu yada”
Verification
A Google keyword search reveals the claim has been online since 2018 when Mr Atiku was contesting for the presidential office ahead of the 2019 elections. A report by the Tribune news outlet, a widely circulated Nigerian newspaper published in 2018 and updated in 2019, indicated that the LGBT movement in Nigeria had endorsed Atiku Abubakar.
Other results show a report by the Independent News, published on October 26, also tells a similar story.
Apart from these sources, there has not been any recent endorsement found, and there is no credible information to support the claim that the LGBTQ+ movement has endorsed Atiku for president in 2023.
However, while endorsements by social movements or organisations are typically publicly announced and widely reported, this particular one was not available in any official statement or announcement by the LGBTQ+ community endorsing Atiku.
In all the reports, Diverse, the group representing the LGBTQ+ community in Nigeria, was quoted through an official called Spinky Victor Lee, who was said to be the group’s “Community President of Nigeria.”
However, a thorough search online reveals no evidence that either Spinky Victor Lee or Diverse exists. Evidently, before the alleged statements of support for Atiku’s campaign, there is no record of any statements or activities attributed to the group.
This is not the first time a claim has been made heads, in a 2018 fact-check published by AFP on a similar claim related to Mr Atiku revealed that The Initiative for Equal Rights (TIERS), a non-governmental which advocates for the rights of sexual minorities clarified that no evidence shows either “Diverse” or “Spinky Victor Lee” exists.
Conclusion
According to DUBAWA’s investigation, the claim is misleading.
