{"id":18315,"date":"2024-04-18T18:11:01","date_gmt":"2024-04-18T17:11:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/?p=18315"},"modified":"2024-04-18T18:11:04","modified_gmt":"2024-04-18T17:11:04","slug":"viral-road-image-from-australia-not-gembu-taraba-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/viral-road-image-from-australia-not-gembu-taraba-state\/","title":{"rendered":"Viral road image from Australia, not Gembu, Taraba state"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Claim: Different Facebook accounts shared a picture of a tarred road and claimed it was from Gembu town in Taraba state, Nigeria.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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

Verdict: FALSE. Findings revealed that the path is named West End Highway at Kangaroo Island, an Australian tourist attraction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full Text<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Good road construction is one of the first indicators of a modernised community. In 2023, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) ranked Nigeria as the sixth African country with the worst road<\/a> infrastructure. With only 37% tarred out of about 200,000 km covering a 923,768 km\u00b2 land mass, Nigeria barely fared better than Rwanda, Guinea, Burundi, Madagascar, and The Gambia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amidst the reality of a deplorable road infrastructure in the country, it was surprising when a picture of a tarred road spanning a distance started trending on social media. We first found the picture on X when a user named Typical African (@Joe_Bassey) shared<\/a> it on Apr. 13, 2024, claiming that it was a road in Gembu at Taraba state, Nigeria.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of Apr. 16, 2024, the post had gained about 2701 reactions, 348 reposts and 121 bookmarks from more than 58,900 views.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Facebook, we found the claim here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a> and here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The virality of the claim made us fact-check the image.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Verification<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

DUBAWA conducted a Reverse Image Search using Google Lens. We discovered that the original picture was taken at Kangaroo Island, a tourist attraction site in Australia. We found a website<\/a> dedicated to providing tour guides with navigation on the island. Fortunately, the road was the featured image on the website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To find the precise path in the viral picture, we compared the tour sketch on the website with the image and established a similar pattern between the image and the path leading out of Flinders Chase National Park on the island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
West End Highway (circled red) on Kangaroo Island sketch. Source: Kangaroo Island stories.\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

With this fact in hand, we conducted a street-view analysis using Google Earth. The path we found was named West End Highway. None of this information pointed to Nigeria or bore any similarity with anywhere in Taraba state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Street view of West End Highway. Source: Google Earth<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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


<\/strong>Our findings show the viral image is from Kangaroo Island in Australia, not Gembu in Taraba state. Therefore, the claim is false. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Claim: Different Facebook accounts shared a picture of a tarred road and claimed it was from Gembu town in Taraba state, Nigeria. Verdict: FALSE. Findings revealed that the path is named West End Highway at Kangaroo Island, an Australian tourist attraction. Full Text Good road construction is one of the first indicators of a modernised community. In 2023, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) ranked Nigeria as the sixth African country with the worst road infrastructure. With only 37% tarred out of about 200,000 km covering a 923,768 km\u00b2 land mass, Nigeria barely fared better than Rwanda, Guinea, Burundi, Madagascar, and The Gambia. Amidst the reality of a deplorable road infrastructure in the country, it was surprising when a picture of a tarred road spanning a distance started trending on social media. We first found the picture on X when a user named Typical African (@Joe_Bassey) shared it on Apr. 13, 2024, claiming that it was a road in Gembu at Taraba state, Nigeria.\u00a0 As of Apr. 16, 2024, the post had gained about 2701 reactions, 348 reposts and 121 bookmarks from more than 58,900 views. On Facebook, we found the claim here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.\u00a0 The virality of the claim made us fact-check the image. Verification DUBAWA conducted a Reverse Image Search using Google Lens. We discovered that the original picture was taken at Kangaroo Island, a tourist attraction site in Australia. We found a website dedicated to providing tour guides with navigation on the island. Fortunately, the road was the featured image on the website. To find the precise path in the viral picture, we compared the tour sketch on the website with the image and established a similar pattern between the image and the path leading out of Flinders Chase National Park on the island. With this fact in hand, we conducted a street-view analysis using Google Earth. The path we found was named West End Highway. None of this information pointed to Nigeria or bore any similarity with anywhere in Taraba state. Conclusion Our findings show the viral image is from Kangaroo Island in Australia, not Gembu in Taraba state. Therefore, the claim is false. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18316,"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":[437,1571,3812,3815,123],"tags":[],"verdict":[],"ppma_author":[3263],"class_list":["post-18315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-facebook-checks","category-fact-check","category-headline","category-homepage","category-mainstream"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8R6dE-4Lp","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":3263,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"phillip-anjorin","display_name":"Phillip Anjorin","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/98daaf5d9d7a2c5cd4ce1c417532d1cfa2ca293247710cf46a925146cc2e90e1?s=96&r=g","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\/2024\/04\/kangaroo-island.jpg?fit=1024%2C633&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18315","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=18315"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18317,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18315\/revisions\/18317"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18315"},{"taxonomy":"verdict","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/verdict?post=18315"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=18315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}