{"id":15817,"date":"2023-09-06T11:47:56","date_gmt":"2023-09-06T10:47:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/?p=15817"},"modified":"2023-09-06T11:48:00","modified_gmt":"2023-09-06T10:48:00","slug":"false-former-president-obasanjo-not-dead-as-claimed-in-viral-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/false-former-president-obasanjo-not-dead-as-claimed-in-viral-video\/","title":{"rendered":"FALSE! Former president Obasanjo not dead as claimed in viral video"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Claim: Former President Olusegun Obasanjo is dead.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Verdict: FALSE! Our findings and the spokesperson of the former president dismissed it as untrue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full Text <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo is a two-time leader of Nigeria, first as a military head of state from 1976 to 1979 and later as an elected civilian president from 1999 to 2007.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr Obasanjo, who has always been vocal about Nigeria\u2019s democracy and the performance of different presidents, was recently in the news<\/a> for criticising the Muhammadu Buhari-led government.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Tuesday, September 5, 2023, a video suggesting the former president is late went viral on WhatsApp with a caption in French. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cD\u00c9C\u00c8S DE L’ANCIEN PR\u00c9SIDENT DU NIGERIA OLUSHEGUN OBASANJO\u201d the caption reads. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 12-second video, the tag RIP, meaning rest in peace, was boldly written over the different images of Mr Obasanjo compiled. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The virality of the video requests for verification from our WhatsApp community and the personality involved prompted us to verify this assertion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Verification<\/strong> <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We first observed the wrong spelling of the former president\u2019s name in the caption. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To get the clear meaning of the caption in French, we used Google Translate, which translated it to mean \u201cDEATH OF FORMER PRESIDENT OF NIGERIA OLUSEGUN OBASANJO\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seeing the video is from TikTok as it had the profile tag of the TikTok user (Wazobia.fm), we visited TikTok and searched for the user. We found the video shared<\/a> by Wazobia.fm on Tuesday, September 5, 2023, with 158 likes and 202 shares.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We observed that the comment for this TikTok post had been turned off. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Screenshot of the TikTok post.\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Going through the profile of this user, we observed that this account, with over 1,000 followers, is notorious for sharing videos about the death of popular persons, from musicians to actors and pastors in Nigeria, with the same soundtrack. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We conducted a keyword search to find any news report in line with this assertion but found none. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we reached out to the spokesperson of the former president, Kehinde Akinyemi,  via messages and calls, and he responded by stating the former president is fine and currently outside the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe is outside the country! Tanzania or Kenya as of this morning,\u201d part of his response reads. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Our findings show that this assertion is false. The PA of the former president debunked it.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Claim: Former President Olusegun Obasanjo is dead. Verdict: FALSE! Our findings and the spokesperson of the former president dismissed it as untrue. Full Text  Former President Olusegun Obasanjo is a two-time leader of Nigeria, first as a military head of state from 1976 to 1979 and later as an elected civilian president from 1999 to 2007.\u00a0 Mr Obasanjo, who has always been vocal about Nigeria\u2019s democracy and the performance of different presidents, was recently in the news for criticising the Muhammadu Buhari-led government.\u00a0 On Tuesday, September 5, 2023, a video suggesting the former president is late went viral on WhatsApp with a caption in French.  \u201cD\u00c9C\u00c8S DE L’ANCIEN PR\u00c9SIDENT DU NIGERIA OLUSHEGUN OBASANJO\u201d the caption reads.  In the 12-second video, the tag RIP, meaning rest in peace, was boldly written over the different images of Mr Obasanjo compiled.  The virality of the video requests for verification from our WhatsApp community and the personality involved prompted us to verify this assertion. Verification  We first observed the wrong spelling of the former president\u2019s name in the caption.  To get the clear meaning of the caption in French, we used Google Translate, which translated it to mean \u201cDEATH OF FORMER PRESIDENT OF NIGERIA OLUSEGUN OBASANJO\u201d.\u00a0 Seeing the video is from TikTok as it had the profile tag of the TikTok user (Wazobia.fm), we visited TikTok and searched for the user. We found the video shared by Wazobia.fm on Tuesday, September 5, 2023, with 158 likes and 202 shares. We observed that the comment for this TikTok post had been turned off.  Going through the profile of this user, we observed that this account, with over 1,000 followers, is notorious for sharing videos about the death of popular persons, from musicians to actors and pastors in Nigeria, with the same soundtrack.  We conducted a keyword search to find any news report in line with this assertion but found none.  So we reached out to the spokesperson of the former president, Kehinde Akinyemi,  via messages and calls, and he responded by stating the former president is fine and currently outside the country. \u201cHe is outside the country! Tanzania or Kenya as of this morning,\u201d part of his response reads.  Conclusion Our findings show that this assertion is false. The PA of the former president debunked it.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15818,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"hannibal_claim_source":"","hannibal_source_label":"","hannibal_card_color":"blue","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":false,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"","_twitter_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type":"","_pinterest_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"","_medium_share_type":"","_threads_share_type":"","_google_business_share_type":"","_bluesky_share_type":"","_mastodon_share_type":"","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":false,"datetime":null,"platforms":[],"status":"template_only","dateOption":"today","timeOption":"now","customDays":"","customHours":"","customDate":"","customTime":"","schedulingType":"absolute"},"_wpsp_active_default_template":true},"categories":[437,1571,3812,3815,16],"tags":[],"verdict":[],"ppma_author":[1106],"class_list":["post-15817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-facebook-checks","category-fact-check","category-headline","category-homepage","category-politics"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8R6dE-477","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":1106,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"lois-ugbede","display_name":"Lois Ugbede","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/Lois.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/Lois.jpg"},"author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"","first_name":"","job_title":"","description":""}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Obasanjo-olusegun.jpeg?fit=677%2C453&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15817"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15819,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15817\/revisions\/15819"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15817"},{"taxonomy":"verdict","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/verdict?post=15817"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=15817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}