CLAIM: A Facebook post claims that a Muslim community in Kaduna burns young Igbo boy alive
FALSE. Granted, the governing circumstances surrounding the picture cannot be ascertained; but, the ubiquitous nature of the story over the years with respect to the recycled picture calls its veracity into account.
FULL STORY:
A Facebook post with an accompanying picture appearing on different pages on the 12th and 13th of August respectively has gone viral.
The post reads: Muslim Community In Kaduna Burns young Igbo boy Alive – Chidi Cali.
The boy was alleged to have urinated on a gutter close to a perimeter wall of a Mosque in state capital, Kaduna. The religious fanatics plucked off his eyes, tortured him severely and set him ablaze alive. No one objected to this gruesome and shocking action and no arrest has been made.
I condemn this barbaric act and wondered there was no voice of reason that should have called these fanatics to order.” Mr Adams Yusuf prides and posted this incident as seen on the 3rd picture too.
YET THESE ARE THE SAME PEOPLE ASKING FOR LAND FOR RUGA SETTLEMENTS. VIOLENCE MUST NEVER BE A SOLUTION.
A bit of context…
In recent times, reports of kidnapping, banditry, farmer/herder clashes has been the order in Nigeria, particularly in the northern parts of the country. This incessant occurrences have in one way or the other jeopardised the security of the country. So in this regard, disinformation has become the norm. This is especially true for people who propagate the biased religious and ethnic rhetoric. The irony is that perpetrators in some cases have the best of intentions and often have a large audience.
Such is the case with this post and its audience cannot be denied. This post has garnered over 1000 shares within the last 24-hours and over 2000 shares in total on different pages. It was also discovered that it has also been trending on Twitter.
Verification of the claim:
Adjectives such as ‘‘fake’’ and ‘‘callous’’ were used by the Kaduna State police command when describing the news. This was reported by the Sun news online on Wednesday, 14th August 2019.
According to Sun news, the DSP Yakubu Sabo, in a statement on Wednesday evening said that there was no truth to the report in any part of the northern Nigerian state.
“…The Command wishes to state that there was no report of such incident and the story is entirely a fabricated, maliciously intended to incite crisis and create fear in the minds of unsuspecting citizens…”
In an attempt to cover our bases, Dubawa put a call across to the PRO Kaduna state command DSP Yakubu Sabo to get full details of the incident. The phone rang and there was no response. In the meantime, further research conducted (google image reverse search) revealed that this same story has been used in different reports for as far back as 2016.
Timeline of appearance
To access the links in the table, click here.
The only corroborated story on that list is perhaps the story by Sahara Reporters which referenced a story published by Premium Times; although, they did make use of the same image.
CONCLUSION:
Granted, the original governing circumstances surrounding the picture cannot be ascertained; but, the ubiquitous nature of the story over the years with respect to the recycled picture calls its veracity into account. It is therefore FALSE!
Sidenote: We advise that any information that has not been reported by various notable print or electronic media should be consumed with a healthy dose of skepticism.
