Akinwumi Adesina. Source: BBC.
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Claim: A Facebook account claimed that the Central Bank of Nigeria has sued the African Development Bank’s president, Akinwumi Adesina, over an alleged interview with Arise TV.
Verdict: FALSE. DUBAWA’s findings revealed that such an interview did not hold, let alone spur a legal battle between the apex bank and the Nigerian economist. Also, the supposed publication is fake.
Full Text
A Facebook page, Union Patriotica Cordoba, made a sponsored post on Nov. 17, 2024, with the caption, “We say goodbye to Akinwumi Adesina, the saddest day for Nigerians.”
The featured image on the attached link was designed like a report from the Vanguard newspaper, with the economist’s picture under a headline that reads, “Akinwumi Adesina didn’t know the microphone was on. We say goodbye to him forever. This is a sad day for all of Nigeria.”
The attached link’s headline reads, “Central Bank of Nigeria sues Akinwumi Adesina over statements he made on live television,” indicating an alleged legal feud between the former minister of agriculture and Nigeria’s apex bank.
As of Nov. 21, 2024, the post has generated 583 reactions, 32 comments, and two reshares since it was posted. The page sponsored the claim in another post, generating 656 reactions, 39 comments, and seven reshares.
The severity of the information’s implications for Mr Adesina’s reputation as AFDB president prompted DUBAWA to verify the claim.
Verification
We clicked on the link to the designed “Vanguard newspaper” website and discovered differing features when we compared the alleged publication with original Vanguard publications.
We used a report titled, “Youths’ future is in Nigeria, not in US, China or Europe – AfDB’s Akinwumi Adesina,” published on Oct. 19, 2024, to validate our findings.
As seen in the image above, the designs were different. Original Vanguard publications had their logo at the top left corner of the page layout, compared to the fake link, which placed the logo at the top centre. Also, the Vanguard page layout contains the publication date, “news,” and their social media accounts represented by the symbols on the page’s lefthand side. In contrast, the righthand side displays the latest published news. These features were absent in the fake link.
The copy on the fake link claimed the interview was between Mr Adesina and a “Zainab Reuben” who works for Arise TV. We used an advanced keyword search to find this author but found no such person working for the prominent television station.
We also used Google Lens to trace the source of the image in the link to a tweet by Rolake Akinkugbe-Filani on March 8, 2024. In this tweet, Ms Akinkugbe-Filani interviewed him on leadership, food security, Nigeria’s economy, and African youths.
This tweet was reposted by the AFDB president the following day.
DUBAWA went through the transcript of the supposed interview on the website and noticed it was portrayed as if Mr Adesina vouched for a trading platform called Coinsterix. When we clicked the Vanguard logo on the website, it redirected users to the Coinsterix platform.
We could not find evidence of litigation against Mr Adesina on the Central Bank of Nigeria’s website and social media accounts. DUBAWA also checked through Vanguard newspaper and other credible media organisations since Nov. 17, 2024, and found no news about such an incident.
Lastly, the 64-year-old economist warned the public in his tweet on Nov. 7, 2024, about using artificial intelligence to generate deepfakes, using his image to deceive the unsuspecting public.
Conclusion
There is no record of Nigeria’s Central Bank suing the president of the African Development Bank, Akinwumi Adesina, over an interview published in Vanguard newspaper. The interview is fake, and the claim is a mischievous attempt to promote a phoney trading platform named Coinsterix.
